We Were Strangers Once

by Betsy Carter

  For so long Egon had distanced himself from the ones left behind. He was one of the lucky ones, but maybe now his luck had run out. He couldn’t stop his mind swinging between the apocalyptic and the mundane. What if he was deported? Would Catrina come with him? Could she come with him? What would he do in Germany? What if he was arrested? Would he even be capable of manual labor? Did they have Tums in Germany? If the spirit died, how long would it take for the body to follow?

  At least twice a week, Art took him aside and whispered, “Any word from Immigration?” When Egon answered, “Not yet,” Art would shake his head and blink his buttonhole eyes. Egon knew this was meant to make him feel as if they were in this together, but all it did was make him more anxious.

  Before work on most days, he still took his bag of crumbs up to the Cloisters and sat on a bench, where he fed the birds. His heart wasn’t in it, but it was the one part of his day that was his own, and afterward, he always felt as if he’d regained a bit of himself. On one of those mornings, Egon walked into Art’s humming “When You Wish upon a Star.” It happened that Art walked in behind him and Egon could hear him laugh. Art pointed at Egon’s shoulder and said, “Looks like while you were wishing upon a star, a pigeon was shitting upon your jacket.”

  Egon twisted his head around and saw the white stain, like a blob of paint with black ink in its center. If anyone but Art had pointed it out, Egon would have shared in the joke, but the nasty way Art’s lips twisted when he said it made Egon feel ashamed.

  “It will come right off. A little warm water is all,” said Egon, heading to the bathroom.

  Art was waiting for Egon when he came back. Art watched Egon slip his apron over his head and tie it in the back. “Aren’t you missing something?” Art asked.

  Egon looked around. “The meats and cheeses are in place. The signs with today’s specials are tacked up behind the slicer. No, I think everything is where it should be.”

  “And what about the button? Where is that?” asked Art.

  Egon patted the place on his chest where it was usually affixed. “Oh, I must have left it at home.”

  Twice this month, he had lost his Cheese Man button, and each time, Art had replaced it. Now, Art looked doubtful. “If it’s lost again, this one’s on you. Eighty-five cents. I want to see it by tomorrow.”

  Egon looked around to see if anyone was nearby. It was still early, and no one else appeared to be in the store. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.” He bent down and spoke in a conspiratorial voice: “I think people might be getting tired of the Cheese Man. It has been a long time.”

  Art laughed. “Okay then, would you rather be known as the Bologna Man?”

  Egon thought Art was joking, yet he could picture it: the button, the customers smirking as they called him Mr. Bologna, how Meyer would congratulate him for moving up in the food chain from dairy to meat.

  The following morning, Egon showed up with the button pinned on his apron. Art shot him a sailor’s salute. “Nice to have you back,” he said.

  That Sunday, as Egon sat with Meyer at Nash’s, Meyer pointed to Egon’s pants and said, “You know you have a bloodstain on your thigh, don’t you?”

  Egon looked down. “Probably from the roast beef.”

  “It’s not attractive.”

  “Who cares?”

  “You’re the neat one, I’m the slob. Shouldn’t you care?”

  “Meyer, you are the one who always complains how wedded to form we are. So I ask you, does anyone really care if I have blood or bird shit on my pants, or that your hair stands up like a cactus, or that Catrina sometimes chews with her mouth open? The world is going to hell. We are not going to fix it by wearing clean clothes or bettering our table manners. I have played by these rules my whole life, and for what? So I can be put on a ship and sent back to Germany? Yes, there is blood on my pants and I am wearing the same socks I wore yesterday. So what?”

  Meyer ran his hands through his hair. “Does it really stand up like a cactus?”

  “That is not the point.”

  “I know, but this is: You have to take hold of yourself. While we have some semblance of human dignity, we owe it to the people around us to be civil and not surrender. May I remind you that at this moment you are a free man in a free country? That’s not nothing. Giving up now is pointless. Besides, defeat stinks like cow shit. People can smell it from ten miles away. Even the kind ones will hate you for it.”

  “Thank you for that,” mumbled Egon. “This is good to know.”

  Later, they met Catrina and walked through the park. Egon told them how, on Friday, they’d received a shipment of matzoh at Art’s. “The new clerk was carrying at least twenty-five boxes of them when he tripped on something in the middle of the store.” Egon threw his hands in the air. “The boxes went flying and landed so you could hear every matzoh crumble. They are like eggshells, you know.” He raised his eyebrows. Attempting to be lighthearted and use the flourishes that had always worked for Meyer, Egon failed on both counts.

  “That’s awful,” said Catrina. “Art must have given that poor clerk hell.”

  “Matzoh,” said Meyer, as if he hadn’t even heard the story. “Of course. It’s almost Passover.” He raised his finger. “I have a thought. Maybe we should have a Seder this year. It’s a good excuse for all of us to get together and take stock of where we are and where we’ve been.”

  “That’s a nice idea,” said Catrina. “I could have it at my place.”

  They both turned to Egon. “What do you think?” asked Meyer.

  “Suddenly we are religious? I thought we were supposed to be Americans. That was after we were Germans. Meyer, when did you become a Jew?”

  “The same time you did. When they nearly killed us for it.”

  “And when was the last time you celebrated Passover?”

  “Never.”

  “So now you are feeling holy?”

  “Listen, I’m not suggesting we wrap ourselves in tallisim and grow peyes. I thought it would be a way to celebrate spring. We’ve made it through another winter and we’re all still here. Frankly, Egon, I thought it might be a nice thing for you to have us all together and talk about things that aren’t morbid or frightening for a change.”

  Egon stopped walking. He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. “Passover. That is when we celebrate that we are no longer slaves. Oh yes, the holiday with the plagues: locusts, frogs, boils, Immigration Services, Art’s Grocery Store. Then there are the bitter herbs to remind us of what our lives have become. And of course the singing of ‘Dayenu,’ a celebration of all the wonderful things God has done for us: Johnny’s death, Rose’s death, starvation, war. Dayenu. But there is always next year in Jerusalem. For me, it could be next year in Frankfurt.” He opened his eyes. “Honestly, I would rather skip Passover this year.”

  Meyer and Catrina exchanged looks. Both started to speak. “You’re not the only one in the world having a hard time right now,” said Catrina. “Can you really not see how much people are trying to help you? Honestly, Egon.” She marched ahead of both of them.

  Meyer clapped his friend on the shoulder. “As I believe I mentioned earlier, no one likes the stink of defeat.” He ran to catch up with Catrina.

  Egon watched them walk away, the two people he loved most. He looked down and noticed the nubs of hyacinths and daffodils poking through the earth and remembered how, when he first arrived, Meyer had told him that New York springs were like miracles. God’s atonement for winter, he’d said.

  Egon turned around and headed out of the park. He would go home and change his pants.

  28.

  Only in the free country can one even conceive of having the president’s ear.

  —Meyer Leavitt, Aufbau, May 5, 1941

  Daisy Suckley couldn’t stop thinking about the letter she’d received weeks earlier. It was as direct and plainspoken as she remembered the hostess from the Blue Moon to be. In it, the woman had described her impoverish
ed Irish childhood and her early days at the restaurant. It was a time spent living in other people’s dreams. She wrote about the deaths of both of her husbands: I thought that was the end of my story, and it might have been had not a foreigner entered my life. His name is Egon Schneider. He is an older man, a Jew, a recent immigrant from Germany. While he is a most unlikely companion for me, we plan to marry. She described Egon’s childhood, and his late parents, Elisabeth and Rudolph Schneider: They are best known for their book on the birds of Europe, European Ornithology.

  The letter said that Egon had chosen his own path and become an ophthalmologist. Because of the situation in Germany, he’d fled to America in 1938 and had to start all over again. Despite working long hours in a grocery store in New York City, she wrote, he has found time to help his neighbors and the people who couldn’t afford to take their pets to veterinarians. In fact, he restored many of the animals, who might have otherwise perished, back to health. Now he is thinking that someday, he might like to become a veterinarian. I am telling you these details so that you will come to know the fine character of the man I am writing to you about. She described the circumstances that had prompted this letter, and said how she feared the results of the upcoming hearing. He meant no harm working without a license. It would be beyond my wildest dreams if you would show this letter to your cousin. Perhaps he could convince Immigration Services to put a stop to this unbearable situation and allow Egon Schneider to get on with his life in America. I know this is a desperate measure, and I am sorry to trouble you, but for me and Egon Schneider this is a desperate time.

  Daisy had kept the letter in her purse for weeks, unsure of what to do with it, not knowing when she would next see her cousin Franklin. Should she even bother him with it? Franklin Roosevelt was, to say the least, a harried man; one foreigner’s destiny was a trifle compared with what he had to handle every day. Besides, what if he got angry with her for meddling? For all the time they’d spent together, they’d never even had a spat.

  On the second weekend in May, Franklin came home to Hyde Park for an overnight visit and invited Daisy to join him for a predawn drive to Thompson Pond in nearby Pine Plains. As they’d done many times before, Daisy, Franklin, and his Scottish terrier, Fala, slipped away in Franklin’s Ford roadster and escaped the Secret Service agents, who didn’t know those woods as intimately as he did. On this morning, they had the pond to themselves. It was where Franklin had gone as a boy to hear the swamp birds sing at dawn. In spring, the pond was a popular stopover for migratory birds, and Franklin’s face lit up as he nudged Daisy and identified the clipped notes of a blackbird and the warble of a marsh wren. As the sun rose, Franklin counted up how many songs they’d heard that morning. Twenty-two. “Good number,” he said. “Let’s make it an even thirty.”

  This was one of his favorite pastimes. He’d told her that when he was eleven, his father had given him a shotgun, which he used to collect and then stuff the birds of the Hudson River. Although his mother allowed him to kill only one male and one female of each species, and none during the mating season, he’d collected more than three hundred species by the time he was fourteen. Daisy had seen some of those birds, dusty and faded now, perched on the mantelpiece in Hyde Park next to his vast collection of books about birds. He liked to say that being one of the leading authorities on the birds of Dutchess County was his greatest accomplishment.

  Franklin pointed to a stump sticking out of the water. Seated erectly on top of it was a slender white creature with a gentle curve in its long neck. “Egret,” he whispered to Daisy. They sat frozen in place, waiting for the bird to spread its broad wings. “They nest on a platform of sticks or reeds, so this one may be looking for a house.” When nothing happened, they drove a bit closer and realized that what they’d been staring at was a quart bottle on a stump. “Quart bottles also like to nest on platforms of sticks or reeds,” said Franklin, laughing.

  “But what a graceful quart bottle it is,” she answered.

  Franklin took off his pince-nez glasses and cleaned them with his scarf. “I didn’t used to have trouble distinguishing bottles from birds,” he said. “Maybe it’s time to get my eyes checked.”

  Daisy squinted at the pond. “I still can’t make out that it’s not an egret.”

  Franklin scratched the dog’s head. “Well, at least one of us has perfect eyesight, don’t you, Fala.”

  Clearly, Franklin was relaxed and in no rush to return to Hyde Park, where the Secret Service would be waiting to whisk him back to Washington. These were the moments Daisy cherished the most, and she willed time to stand still. She remembered the letter in her purse and thought this was a good time to mention it. “I’m curious, have you ever heard of these people, Elisabeth and Rudolph Schneider? They were German Jews. They wrote about birds.”

  Franklin squinted and looked as if he was trying to retrieve information. “Have I ever met them?”

  “No, I don’t believe you ever did. They wrote a book that was apparently famous, European Ornithology.”

  “Yes, that one’s a classic. I have it in my collection, and I own one of the illustrator’s original drawings. How on earth do you know about them?”

  Daisy pulled the envelope from her purse and opened Catrina’s letter. “I don’t mean to be a bother or take up much of your time. It’s just that this letter about these people, this situation, it’s fallen in my lap.”

  She read it to him. He shook his head. “You mean to tell me that Elisabeth and Rudolph Schneider’s son is working in a grocery store in New York City?”

  “That seems to be the case.”

  “When did he come here?”

  “It says 1938.”

  Franklin shook his head. “Lucky he got out. Are the parents still over there?”

  She scanned the letter. “No, she mentions his ‘late parents.’”

  “Why did she write to you?”

  “I knew her from the Blue Moon. Remember that place? She’s hoping I can have some influence with you.” Daisy looked away. “That maybe you can somehow intervene with the INS before the hearing. Possibly get them to call it off. Mr. Schneider may want to study veterinary medicine here. They plan to be married.”

  Franklin breathed in and exhaled a sigh. “What do you think, Daisy?”

  “He sounds like an honorable man.”

  “And you, Fala, what do you think?”

  Fala licked Franklin’s chin.

  “Okay, everyone. Concentrate,” said Franklin. “We have eight more songs to listen for.”

  29.

  For so long we have lived as if on a ship mid-ocean. Germans in America, we wait the requisite five years until we can apply for citizenship. German is our native tongue, but the taste is bitter, and we struggle to learn English. We work as scrubwomen and grocers and walk back and forth with sandwich boards on our shoulders, jobs that lead us nowhere but pay for our food and board. We are foreigners who take the subway every day and celebrate Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July. Then, overnight, it seems, the ship glides into harbor and we step ashore.

  —Meyer Leavitt, Aufbau, July 7, 1941

  The notice came in a thin yellow envelope that carried a New York City postmark and was dated June 16, 1941. It looked so inconsequential that Egon nearly discarded it before the word Immigration caught his eye. He would wait until he got upstairs to open it. By the time he unlocked the door, his stomach had turned sour.

  Inside his apartment, he placed the envelope on his desk and sat down. He felt foolish doing what he did next, but he took the glass eye from its case, cupped it in his hands, and called up the image of his mother. Then he put it down and tore open the envelope. The letter was short. He scanned the page for initials, room numbers, dates, and times, but this was all there was:

  Dear Mr. Schneider,

  The Immigration and Naturalization Service has examined your case and concluded that there is not enough evidence to warrant a hearing. There will be no further investigation or commun
ication on this matter. You may proceed with your application for citizenship.

  Thank you for your cooperation.

  Dwight Shoreham,

  Immigration and Naturalization Service

  At first Egon laughed, wondering where they’d come up with the name Dwight Shoreham. Then he read the message again and again and again, until each letter became its own structure, each word its own city. He studied the sentences, waiting for them to come apart. Maybe he’d read it wrong or missed something subtle. What if this was a hoax?

  He spoke each word aloud until they all fit together and made sense. The stiff stationery with the embossed letterhead was no hoax; the letter was official. When the absoluteness sank in, Egon felt dizzy. Time and place were shifting at once, as if he’d crossed a divide. All the clothes he was wearing were from before. The food in his refrigerator was from before. Right now, Meyer, the Cohens, the Schnabels, Liesl were all from before. Even Catrina and Johnny were from before.

  He called Meyer.

  “Listen to this,” he said without saying hello. He read him the letter. Meyer was silent. “Stop picking your teeth, for Christ’s sake. It is over!”

  “It’s not my teeth I’m picking,” said Meyer. “It’s my brain. This is wonderful news, Egon, wonderful news. I’m so relieved for you, congratulations. But it’s also a big story for the Aufbau. Don’t you see how powerful our petition must have been? That the president took note of us will be front-page news. Can you read me the letter again, slowly this time?”

  Egon read it to him, then said, “I am glad I could be of service to your newspaper. I am hanging up now and calling Catrina.”

  Catrina let out a whoop. “This is the best news! What a relief, finally we can go on with our lives.”

  Carola was also happy for him, though she could talk for only a minute because she was making Max’s dinner.

  When Egon told Art the following morning, Art turned darker than his usual liverwurst pink. “Well, the president has always had a soft spot for the underdog. Good for you. I’m sure the letter from your superior at work didn’t hurt your case.”