by Betsy Carter
12.
Egon thought about that woman with the red hair. There was something about her impudence, and the way she said his name without mispronouncing it. He promised himself that if she came in again, he would talk to her about something other than cheese.
On the first Thursday in May, she showed up this time with a German shepherd seated atop a red wagon.
“How are you, Egon?” she asked, squinting at his button.
“I am fine, and how are you?”
“Fine, thank you. And while I don’t have a name tag, I’m Catrina Harty.”
“How nice to meet you, Catrina Harty.” She wore a tan cape and was neither graceful nor slim. Her red hair was windblown and fell dramatically against her dove-white skin. “What can I do for you today?”
“A half pound of ham, please.”
“And who might this be?” he said, looking down at the dog.
“This is Sasha.”
“I know something about dogs,” said Egon, slicing a piece of American cheese. “You will not turn down my offer, will you, Sasha?” he said, stepping around the counter and kneeling to give the dog the cheese.
“Do you have a dog?”
“I do. His name is Johnny. But I also work with animals.”
“I do too.”
Egon glanced around and saw that Art was standing nearby in canned goods. Art frowned on conversing with the customers. “A polite give-and-take is one thing,” he’d said many times. “Any more than that, you do on your own time.”
Egon got up and went back behind the counter. He ran his hands down the side of his apron before slicing up the ham and wrapping it in brown paper. With Meyer’s imitation of him still fresh in his memory, he crafted his words carefully: “I hope you will not think it too forward of me, but we could perhaps have a cup of coffee one night after I leave here.” He looked over at Art. “Here it is hard to talk, and I think maybe we have much to say to each other.”
Sasha sat staring at Egon, her tongue hanging out. He quickly cut off another piece of cheese and gave it to Catrina. “If such a thing can be considered a bribe, then please give this to Sasha with all my good intentions.”
Catrina smiled. He’d never seen her smile before. It was as if someone had lifted the shades and let in sunlight. “Why not?” she said.
“Tomorrow, then,” he said under his breath. “Eight o’clock at Nash’s Bakery on Dyckman Street? I hope that is okay for you.” And then, in a voice loud enough to carry to canned goods: “Will there be anything else, madam?”
“Not at this moment,” she said before turning on her heels and heading toward the cash register.
The next morning, he studied his face in the mirror. He hadn’t noticed the new currents of gray running through his black hair. The jawline was still strong and angular, but those lines under his eyes and the parentheses around his mouth, when had they gotten so pronounced? Did he look older than his thirty-seven years? The ladies of Frankfurt used to say that his blue eyes were the kind a woman could fall into. Was this still true? At home, he had taken his looks and status for granted. Now he wondered how a man could explain to a woman who he once was without sounding vain or pathetic. He slipped the glass eye into his pocket. It wouldn’t help, but it would be there.
He arrived at Nash’s promptly at eight. Catrina was already settled at a table in the back corner. She stood up and he gave a slight bow. “Nice to see you,” he said, aware of how formal his gesture and his speech must seem. “Nice to see you too,” she said. She was wearing a black cardigan and a gray skirt that fell way below her knees. They sat down and the waiter brought them a menu. He could see her moving her lips as she read it. She looked up at him and shook her head. “I don’t know what any of these things are.”
Of course she didn’t. They were all German pastries. What a mistake it was to bring her here, where all the waiters had accents like his. Idiot, he thought, do not let her see how embarrassed you are.
“Do you like chocolate?” he asked.
“I do.”
“And peaches?”
“I do.”
“Then, if I may, I will choose something for you.”
He ordered in English, then asked Catrina to tell him about her work with animals.
“I work with the strays at the ASPCA.”
“The ASPCA is an organization for animals?” he asked.
Catrina smiled. “Something like that. It’s the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, though I’m afraid my job there borders on cruelty.”
“I do not understand,” said Egon.
Catrina explained how she readied the animals for their deaths, and how she and Iris and Susanna tried to save as many as they could. “It’s heartbreaking, and I come home every night smelling like shit—pardon my French. But I love them. Everything I don’t like about people, I like about dogs. There’s nothing dishonest about them. They’re grateful for your attention. Slobbery, but grateful. I don’t like slobbery in people”—she smiled—“but I love it in my strays. I take some in, but it’s never…” She stopped midsentence. “I suppose this isn’t the kind of conversation you want to be having over coffee and cake.”
“No, on the contrary, this is the conversation I most enjoy.” He started to tell her about Speedy when the waiter came with coffee and a piece of chocolate peach cake for each of them. Catrina took a bite and then another. She let the cake sit in her mouth for a while before swallowing. “I don’t mean to interrupt you,” she said, “but this cake! I used to work in a fancy restaurant downtown, the Blue Moon. Have you heard of it?”
“No, I have been here a short time only.”
“Well, in my time at the restaurant, I tasted every delicacy you can imagine—caviar, foie gras, lobster Newburg, crème vichyssoise—but I have never tasted anything this delicious.” She took small forkfuls and chewed slowly, sometimes with her mouth open. In Germany, this would have been considered bad table manners. But now, the eagerness with which she ate seemed delightful. When she finished, he asked if she’d like another piece.
“I certainly wouldn’t turn it away.”
He continued to tell her about Speedy and how he’d been treating animals at his apartment on weekends. “It seems I am easier with animals than with the people. My dog, Johnny, he is also a stray.”
Catrina put down her fork. “I guess you could say I’m a stray myself. I’ve been widowed twice, and my father left when I was seven.” She nodded slightly as if she’d suddenly resolved something within herself.
She was beautiful. Such an intelligent face. That skin and exuberant hair. But mostly it was her eyes that drew him in. They were amber, the rarest of colors. In all his years as an ophthalmologist, he’d never seen eyes this color. “I suppose in this country, I am a stray too,” he said. “Not, how you say, a sloppery one, I hope.”
Catrina laughed. “There’s nothing slobbery about you.”
“Thank you, that is very kind. I am from Germany; maybe this is obvious to you from the way I speak. In Germany I was an ophthalmologist. I loved my work. Because I have no license to practice here, now I am in the grocery store, but I do not intend to be the Cheese Man forever.”
“Is there anything you would like to be forever?” she asked, licking a piece of chocolate off her hand.
He thought about his office in Frankfurt and what it was like to be unafraid. “Yes, to be who I was before… all this. And you? Is there something you would like to be forever?”
Egon knew he’d pronounced “something” some-sing. Those damn th’s. He repeated the question slowly, making sure that the tip of his tongue curled around his front teeth “…something you’d like to be forever?”
Catrina closed her eyes. “Many things.”
“Such as?”
“Oh my, such a question.” She swallowed the last of her cake and gulped down some coffee. “That’s a conversation for another time. Right now, I’d like to be home. It’s late and I have to be at w
ork early tomorrow. Thank you for introducing me to your chocolate peach cake.” She took her wallet from her purse. “How much do I owe you?”
“Do I look to you like someone who needs a handout?” He caught the waiter’s eye and asked for the check.
Catrina crossed her arms. “I meant no offense. Where I come from, we never assume anyone will pay for anything.”
“Where I come from, when a man and woman go for a cup of coffee, it is unheard of for the woman to pay anything.” Egon thought he sounded sterner than he’d meant to.
“Then I’d rather come from where you come from,” she said with a laugh.
“No, you would not.” Again, he heard the harshness in his voice. It was difficult enough translating words from German to English. To also have to worry about how you sounded when you said them was too much to think about. Catrina’s speech had a cadence to it that he found pleasing. Meyer had a sense of timing and a way of saying things that made people laugh. Egon thought his own voice was dull and heavy.
“Well, thank you,” said Catrina, after he paid. “I’ve enjoyed talking with you.”
“And you. Such sympathetic conversation one does not find often.”
Catrina said nothing. She stood up and brushed the crumbs from her skirt. They walked outside, and in the light of the streetlamp he noticed that her lipstick had worn off, leaving only streaks of red in the places where her lips were dry. There was a crumb of chocolate on her bottom lip.
He started to put his finger to her mouth; she moved to take his hand. Neither of those things happened, but each saw the intention in the other. “Good night,” she said, extending her hand for a handshake.
“Good night,” he said, extending his. “Will I see you again?”
“No doubt. Sasha loves your American cheese.”
13.
Young Liesl had come to Egon back in 1936 with crying eyes. She’d claimed that they were crying for what was happening in Germany, and she’d been the first person to tell him that they should get out as soon as possible. Now, three years later, in the spring of 1939, she was standing on the bow of a ship staring ahead at the water. If you kept your eyes fixed on the horizon, the ship’s steward had told her, the nausea would subside. She glanced over at the young man a few feet away from her, long enough to see that his blue-eyed gaze was aligned with hers. In his cashmere coat, fine-twilled pants, and spectator shoes, he wore money well. Wealth and clothes were beside the point now, but she enjoyed drifting into the comfort of her old world.
The boat scaled a wave and landed with force in the lap of the ocean. The movement was lurching and the water hard as bones. Liesl felt the bottom of her stomach drop away before she vomited. Chunks of forgotten food, slippery pieces of beige and yellow, splattered all over her pearl necklace and gray silk blouse. The deep and sour taste stayed with her for the rest of the thirteen days it took her to cross the ocean to America. She wondered if this was the taste her father carried with him.
Months earlier, two members of the Gestapo had shown up at her father’s bank, demanding to see “the Jew, Leopold Kessler.” When he presented himself, they stood him on the head of the gold-inlaid eagle, the symbol of the bank, in the middle of the floor. The one who kept wiping his nose said, “Jews eat money like candy, don’t they, Herr Kessler?” The tall one slapped him when he refused to answer. Then the one with the handkerchief in his hand repeated, “Jews eat money like candy, don’t they, Herr Kessler?” He finally nodded. The sniffling one stuck his hand in his pocket, pulled out a wad of reichsmarks, and held them up to Leopold’s face. “We have a treat for you. You can eat as much as you want, like candy.” He crumpled the reichsmarks one by one and stuffed them into Leopold’s mouth. “Chew,” he demanded. “Feast on your beloved, worthless money.” It went like that until they had made him swallow so much that he gagged and vomited on his shoes. They both moved aside. “No Jews will work for this bank, is that understood?” said the tall one. “Should you show your face here again, Herr Kessler, we won’t be as kind to you as we were today.” He pulled the handkerchief from Leopold’s breast pocket and held it out. “Clean up this mess and get out.”
Her father said he never lost the taste of vomit. He knew they should flee, go to America, but her mother said to leave behind her house, garden, and friends would be a knife to her heart. Her father argued, but not with do-or-die conviction. Liesl could see he was slipping. He’d always been fastidious about his appearance, but with no place to go and no work to do, he laid his hand-tailored suits aside and didn’t worry whether his shirts were freshly pressed. He stopped clipping his beard and mustache. Untrimmed, hair crept over his lips like ants. Sometimes his wife would pick bread crumbs from his beard.
He was fifty-five, too old, he said, to start all over in a new country. But Liesl, their only child, was not. Her parents insisted, begged, and finally demanded that she leave, but she could not bring herself to abandon her father, not in this condition. Leaving was barely an option after November 9, 1938, when the Nazis burned down nine hundred synagogues and killed hundreds of Jews. But the Kesslers still had connections. In the three months it took for them to use them in order to find Liesl a sponsor and get her papers in order, she urged them to start gathering their own. “We will follow,” they promised, “after you are settled.”
They promised her many things. That in New York City she’d find the gentility of Frankfurt. That her sponsor, a former business associate of her father’s, Flora Einson, would meet her at the boat. That she could stay with her close friend Carola and her husband, Max, in their beautiful apartment in the hills of Washington Heights. That people would recognize that she was a pretty girl from a well-to-do family and be generous to her, as they were at home. That luck had always been on her side and there was no reason to think it would leave now.
The sway of the sea apparently knew nothing of luck. Liesl’s stomach heaved and her head swirled, causing her to hold on to the bulkheads when she walked from one side of her cabin to the other. Still, she had the presence of mind to wash her hair on the morning of the landing. Having heard what happened to people arriving in America with lice or jaundice, she put on more lipstick, powder, and rouge than usual.
It took nearly two hours for her to clear inspection, only to wait another hour and a half for customs officers to go through her luggage. As she stood in line with the rest of the people whose last names began with K, an announcement came over the loudspeaker: “Liesl Kessler, identify yourself to the agent at Gate Five.” Her legs were still wobbly, and her head was filled with the noises of the street. She worried that they had called her because her papers weren’t in order, or because the doctor had heard something amiss with his stethoscope. She swallowed her dread. The announcement came three times before she found the nerve to come forward. She ran her fingers through her hair. Remember, you are Leopold Kessler’s daughter.
She walked up to the agent and in her best English said, “Please, sir, I am Liesl Kessler.” The customs official checked her passport. He looked at her picture and studied her face. “So you are,” he said with an inappropriate smile. He pointed to a policeman wearing white gloves with a whistle around his neck who was directing people through the crowd. “Tell him who you are.” She found the officer and again presented her passport. “Please, I am Liesl Kessler.”
He checked her papers, then held up his hand and led her to a street where automobiles were lined up. He blew his whistle and waved to a black man wearing a gray cap and navy jacket. “Hey bud, I’ve got your gal.”
The man came forward, pressed a bill into the policeman’s hand, and took Liesl’s luggage. He led her to a cream-colored car with black trim and opened the back door. There sat a striking woman wearing an aubergine suit, her legs crossed at the ankles. The feather in her stylish hat picked up the color in her suit, as did her matching pumps. “You must be Liesl Kessler,” she said in perfect German. “I’m Flora Einson. Welcome to America.”
Liesl go
t into the backseat with Flora. The leather was soft and smelled rich. Flora’s fingernails were blood red and perfectly manicured. Liesl touched her pearls and took her first easy breath in weeks. Flora said something to the driver in English, then told Liesl in German, “Today we’ll take the scenic route.”
They drove through a white tunnel and turned left, heading to Thirty-Fourth Street. The driver stopped the car at Fifth Avenue, and Flora told Liesl to get out and look up. The Empire State Building. She’d seen it in photographs but never imagined any structure could be so tall. Even on her tiptoes, she couldn’t see to the top. “How far does it go?” she asked Flora.
“Farther than any building in the world,” Flora answered. “Come. We shall see more of New York.” Back in the car, the driver turned up Park Avenue and slowed as they approached a commanding limestone and brick building with chrome-capped towers. “The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel,” announced Flora. “The finest hotel there is.”
Liesl nodded as if taking measure of the place for future reference.
They drove on. Flora asked Liesl about her father. Liesl told her about the incident at the bank and about how her father had been dismissed.
Flora shook her head. “They have to get out. What are they waiting for?”
“It’s hard for them,” said Liesl. “They have their friends, their house. They promise they will come soon.”
“Soon is not soon enough,” said Flora. “Do you understand?”
The urgency in Flora’s voice jelled in Liesl’s stomach. “Natürlich.”
“Good,” said Flora brusquely. “Now, let’s talk of more pleasant things.” She pointed out some tall apartment buildings. “This is where wealthy New Yorkers live.”