“Quick thinking. He’s not going to be a problem.”
“Polly did the same thing at an airport in London when she was trying to get away from the paparazzi.”
Alexander shook his head. “Is there anything Polly hasn’t done?”
“We’ve been on the air for years, so no, not really. You know they’re going to release that man once they discover he doesn’t have a bomb. And he knows we’re getting on another flight.”
“But we could be going anywhere in the world.”
“True. Finding us will be like finding a needle in a haystack.”
“If he ever gets out of customs, he can track us,” Alexander pointed out. “We’re using our real names and passports. But, hopefully, we can make it to Zurich and to the train station before he figures it out. He can’t be working alone. Sooner or later, they’re going to find us. I hope Polly has some other tricks up her sleeve.”
Chapter Sixteen
Eva Grandcouer
Baden, Switzerland, Present Day
The nurse helped the old woman from her prone position and propped her up against her feather pillows. She informed her patient that there were two visitors, a young couple, and despite her years, and the fact that she didn’t know these people, she was fastidious and wanted to maintain a good appearance. The nurse ran a comb through the woman’s hair and freshened her lipstick.
Alexander and Hallelujah walked into the room. He extended his hand. “Eva Grandcoeur?”
The woman nodded, placed a wrinkled hand in his, and then released it.
The man came close to her bed to address her.
“I am Alexander Stone. And this is my friend Hallelujah Weiss.”
The old woman pursed her lips. Hallelujah came out from the shadows and smiled tentatively. Alexander hadn’t said wife. Now that the cruise was over, she was reduced to a friend. The woman’s eyes founds hers.
“Weiss. You are a Jew?”
Hallelujah nodded. The woman expelled a calming breath.
“Thank you for seeing us. We’ve come a long way to ask you some questions, if you don’t mind. Do you know a family called the Hirschfelds? Father Julian, Mother Ana, daughter Hannah, and young son Aaron.”
Eva’s smile never quite made it to her face. Hannah Hirschfeld. It had been many years since she’d heard that name.
“Why do you ask?”
“Because there were four stumble stones placed outside my house in Dahlem to commemorate that family. I live in the house now, their house, the house where the Hirschfeld family lived before the war.”
“Your house?”
“Yes, I recently bought it.”
“How did you find me?”
“Your name was on a receipt. You paid for four stumble stones in that family’s name. Did you know them?”
The woman kneaded her hands together, considered her answer for a minute or two, and finally said, “Yes.”
“Do you remember what happened to the family?” Alexander asked.
The woman closed her eyes and grimaced before she looked up at Alexander. “I was there the day they were rounded up.”
She placed her hand over her eyes and bowed her head, as though searching her memory. She seemed to struggle for a breath.
“What do you remember about that day?” Alexander asked.
“I remember hiding in the space under the stairs,” said Eva clearly. “I heard footsteps, and a pounding noise at the front door. I was so frightened, but I stayed where I was, following my mother’s instructions. I heard the argument between one of the officers, a Sturmbannführer, and my father. I will never forget his voice as long as I live. He had my parents and little brother dragged away to the camps. For the next hour, footsteps were everywhere on the hardwood floors, on the Aubussons. I heard furniture being turned over, boxes opened. I froze there in my hiding place. When the noises were gone, I walked out into the living room. Drawers were opened, our possessions were strewn everywhere. I wanted my mother, but she was gone. Then the neighbor from next door, a friend of my mother’s, a fine Catholic woman, opened the door.
“ ‘Hannah, are you in here?’ She found me and told me she had seen my mother being taken away. I was to go with her, the neighbor; she was to care for me until my mother returned. But of course she never returned. I looked around and saw a family picture on the floor. The glass was broken, but I removed the picture and took her hand. She hid me in her house for the remainder of the war. I didn’t go to school. I didn’t go outside at all.”
“Like Anne Frank,” whispered Hallelujah. “But luckier.”
The woman shook her head. “Maybe not so lucky. To this day, I still crave the sunlight. Our villa in Dahlem was open to the sun, skylights everywhere. While I was in hiding, I was always in the dark. When the war was over, my guardian helped me look for my parents, but they were gone, along with the rest of my family. My mother’s friend raised me as her own. She called me Eva. I still have that picture.”
Hannah pointed to a black-and-white picture in a frame, surrounded by a cotillion of more recent color family pictures. “There, that’s me.”
Alexander was struck by Hannah’s appearance. She must have been a beauty in her day.
“You’re Hannah?”
“Yes, I was Hannah Hirschfeld.”
Alexander was stunned. He looked at Hallelujah.
“What happened to you after the war?” Hallelujah asked gently.
Hannah sat up straight and adjusted her pillow. “I grew up, met a man, had children of my own, and grandchildren. I—” The way she hesitated, Hallelujah could tell there was more to the story.
“If you’re Hannah, then I have something for you, something of your father’s that belongs to you.” Alexander handed Hannah the pouch of diamonds, yellowing travel papers—proof of permission to leave Germany, certificates of good conduct from German police authorities, and other identity papers required to apply for entry visas to emigrate to another country—and a stack of family pictures. She examined the contents of the bag. She ignored the diamonds and the faded travel papers and, instead, flipped through the family pictures. Her eyes teared up. She began to shake.
“We’ve upset her,” Hallelujah whispered to Alexander.
“It’s fine. It’s just been so long.” She sighed.
“Hannah, the diamonds. They belonged to your family. I found them in your house when I was doing some renovations, and I’m bringing them to you.”
“Diamonds? What would I want with these? They did my father no good. They got my family murdered.”
“They are your heritage,” Alexander said.
“What am I going to do with them now? I’m an old lady. I’m at the end of my life.”
“Perhaps for your children or grandchildren?” Alexander reasoned.
“What do I need with diamonds? Years ago, maybe, they might have meant something. These transit papers might have meant something, if my father had handed over the diamonds to Herr Hoffman. And with a few exceptions, there are no survivors left to share the proceeds. But wealth is highly overrated.”
“It must cost a lot to live here,” Alexander pointed out. “For your care.”
“I won’t be staying very long.”
“How do we know what God has in store for us?” Hallelujah interjected, lifting Hannah’s frail hand. Always the rabbi’s daughter, she echoed the words of her father and tried to provide comfort for this woman, with whom she felt a strong connection.
Hannah laughed, a low-throated warble. “You’re still very young—Hallelujah, is it? You haven’t had a chance to be disappointed. I will take the pictures, though. They are the only things that have any meaning for me.”
Alexander pressed the photos, tied in a bundle with a blue ribbon, into the woman’s hand.
“Mrs. Grandcoeur, you’re not thinking straight. I came a long way to find out what happened to the family and return what is rightfully theirs. What is now rightfully yours.”
“Well, the
n, I’m afraid you’ve wasted your time,” Hannah answered coolly.
Alexander shook his head.
Then the woman picked up one of the diamonds and smiled.
“My father made jewelry for the Queen of England, did you know? This is the Hirschfeld mark. The mark of my family. He came from a long line of jewelers. It was a source of pride. He always said that one day he would design my engagement ring. ‘If it was good enough for a queen, it’s good enough for my princess.’ That’s what my father used to call me.”
She wiped a tear away and put the diamond back in the pile. “I see I’ve disappointed you. Well, that’s because you don’t know the whole story.”
“I’d like to hear it.” Alexander slipped into a padded wing chair across from Eva. Hallelujah sat on the woman’s bed and continued to hold her hand. She could read people, and her instincts told her this woman needed her to stay close by.
“I learned much of the story after the war,” Eva began. “There were some survivors. The diamonds weren’t my father’s alone to trade. You see, all of his friends got together and liquidated their assets and brought my father money, which he used to buy diamonds to negotiate safe passage for themselves and their families. He also held the travel papers, without which the families could not escape. So my father didn’t jeopardize just his family but all those families who had entrusted their lives to him. When he planned to head out early that day, he was not only signing our death warrant but the death warrants of all of the families who had trusted him. It was a monstrous betrayal. I had to make it right, so I did what I had to do, no matter the cost. Where did you find the diamonds?”
“I was remodeling the area around the bottom of the staircase, and the construction crew found the lockbox. It was filled with the diamonds and the travel visas and the family photos.”
“Under the staircase?” Eva’s hands flew to her throat. “That’s where I was hiding that day, the day that monster came to our house.”
“Mrs. Grandcoeur, it is obvious your father didn’t betray anyone. He couldn’t give up the diamonds because he would have given away your hiding place.”
Tears streamed down Eva’s face at the truth of Alexander’s words. Her father had saved her life. All those years… She had wasted all those years hating her father.
“And knowing what we now know of the Nazi character, the Sturmbannführer would certainly have taken the diamonds and deported your family anyway,” reasoned Alexander. “Your father made the only decision he could have. A decision any father would have made.”
“Do you have children, Mr. Stone?”
Alexander glanced at Hallelujah. “Not yet. But I hope to, one day soon.”
Eva tightened her grip on Hallelujah’s hand. “Do you know Hebrew?”
“Yes,” Hallelujah said, adding, “My father is a rabbi.”
“A rabbi. Well, then, do you know the Mourner’s Kaddish?”
Hallelujah nodded. “Of course.”
“Would you say it for me, for my parents and my baby brother? After the war, I hid the fact that I was Jewish. It’s very dangerous to be a Jew in this world, you see. I’ve never acknowledged my religion. I don’t believe the Germans will ever truly confront their past, and I don’t believe they want to.”
“I think you’re right,” Hallelujah agreed. “Once when my father went on a trip to the Dachau concentration camp, he got lost and stopped a townsperson to get directions. The man said he never heard of Dachau. My father thought perhaps it was a miscommunication, that the man didn’t understand English, so my father prompted, “Konzentrationslage, KZ,” and the man still looked puzzled and said he never heard of that place. Right beyond him, only inches away, was a sign for the camp. I have to believe they are still ashamed of it and don’t want visitors to see. When he got there, at the end of the tour were the ovens. And there was a survivor who said he came every day to talk to visitors about the Holocaust so people would never forget and would know it really happened. My father’s account of that visit, and of the man’s personal history, has always stayed with me. The number of Holocaust survivors continues to drop. I doubt that he is even still there.”
Hallelujah cleared her throat and began to recite the prayer. “Yitgadal veyitkadash shmei raba, bealma divera chireutei veyamlich malchutei, bechayeichon uveyomeichon uvechayei dechol beit Yisrael, baagala uvizeman kariv, veyimeru…”
“Amen,” chanted Eva and Hallelujah, in unison.
Hallelujah recited the remainder of the prayer for the dead without a hitch, without hesitation.
“Now I can die in peace,” whispered Eva, as the women embraced and Alexander watched.
A nurse came in with a lunch tray for Eva. Hallelujah offered to feed her and dismissed the nurse.
“Did you ever return to your parents’ house?” Hallelujah asked after Eva finished eating.
Eva nodded. “Yes, I—”
“And what ever happened to the Sturmbannführer who had your family deported?” Hallelujah interrupted.
Eva smiled. “I married him and moved back into my house. We had a son together.”
Hallelujah couldn’t hide her shock, and for once, she was speechless.
“She asks a lot of questions,” Alexander explained.
“I’d be happy to give you all the answers. It’s a long story.”
“We’re not going anywhere,” Alexander said.
For the next hour, Alexander and Hallelujah listened as Eva recounted the events of her life during and after the war. When she was done talking, she yawned. “I’m feeling a little tired now. I’d like to rest for a while.”
“Of course,” Hallelujah said. “We’ve worn you out. I’m sorry. But I have to know. Did you ever return to Germany after you ran away?”
“No, I never went back there after I came to Switzerland. Too many bad memories. I later learned that Herr Hoffman was hit by a trolley car in Berlin. So maybe there is justice in the world.”
“Did he ever find out what happened to you?” Alexander asked.
“Not at the time. I just left, like a thief in the middle of the night, without an explanation, pregnant with his child. I hope I caused him a lot of sleepless nights.”
“Does your son know who his father was?”
“He thought his father was Hans-Peter Grandcoeur. But one day he learned the truth, and I never saw him again. He called when his real father died, anxious to tell me that he was following in his father’s footsteps.”
Eva’s eyelashes fluttered, and she drifted off to sleep. Hallelujah and Alexander stayed by her bedside.
“That is an amazing story,” Hallelujah said. “I have to write it. People have to know. I’ll ask Eva’s permission when she wakes up.”
About an hour later, Eva sat up in bed. She seemed alert and refreshed and eager to continue their conversation.
“There’s something that’s been bothering me,” said Alexander. “I’ve spent months trying to find a relative of the Hirschfelds. But according to the stumble stone in front of my house, you died in Auschwitz with the rest of your family.”
“Did you know that some one point one million people were murdered in Auschwitz?” Eva said, lowering her voice. “Few survived. But when I heard about the artist’s memorial project, I arranged to fund the stolpersteine for my family, and the ceremony. I added a stone for myself because, in my mind, Hannah Hirschfeld died that day. I should have been with my family. I should have died with them.”
Alexander picked up the family portrait on the side table. “Then what would have happened to your wonderful children?”
Tears slipped out of Eva’s eyes.
“Hannah, Eva, what am I to do with these diamonds?”
“Whatever you want.”
“I have an idea,” Hallelujah suggested. “Why don’t we gift the proceeds of their sale to the Stumble Stones project, and your diamonds will fund even more commemorative plaques. We could donate the money in the name of the Hirschfeld family. That would be your l
egacy.”
“That’s a great idea.” Alexander turned to Eva. “What would you think of that?”
Eva’s mouth formed a hint of a smile. “I think that’s a wonderful idea. But it must be in the name of Hannah Hirschfeld. For the first time in a long time, I’m proud of that name. Mr. Stone, Alexander, let me call my son Aaron. I named him after my little brother. I like to think that Aaron would have grown up to look just like my son. I’ll have him bring over the documents I collected in Berlin.”
“What documents?” Alexander inquired.
After making the brief telephone call to her son, she continued. “I have a complete record of all the transactions and corruption my former husband and his friends were involved in—names, dates, places. Some of the biggest corporations in the country are involved in this scandal. I’d like you to take it to the authorities, and if you don’t get any cooperation, then I want you to send it to the newspapers.”
“How did you get this information?” Alexander asked.
“I was their unofficial stenographer. After the war, I got a job as a typist in an accounting office. Franz made me quit working after we were married, but I was a good typist, and I typed up all the transactions for his corporation. The names of the paintings they stole, who they belonged to, where the paintings were sold, how much they were sold for, and who they were sold to. I recognized many of the works of art. Some were from my own home.”
“You truly have a complete record of all of these stolen goods?”
“Yes, artwork, jewelry, deeds to houses…”
Hallelujah held Eva’s hand. “Do you realize what this could mean? If we could trace the provenance of a painting, for example, it could be returned to its rightful owner. Restitution could be made to the victims or their heirs.”
“But so many years have passed.”
“Yes, but if you have proof of the original ownership of these goods, even if the paintings changed hands several times, they can be traced, used in court cases. It would shave years off a search.” She turned to Alexander.
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