by Susan Finlay
“Oh, mein Gott! Do you know where she is?”
“She is in there,” he said, nodding toward the house. “Been holed up in there since Hermann left. I tried visiting her this morning. She would not answer the door.”
“Will you help me get inside? She could be . . . .” She let her words trail, not wanting to say what she was thinking. Aunt Karolina wouldn’t kill herself, would she?
“I guess that is better than calling the gestapo. One of my other neighbors wanted to do that two hours ago, but decided she did not want to call attention to our street.” He shrugged. “Makes me wonder what that neighbor is hiding, but it is none of my concern.”
Ilse nodded. “Should we go around to the backdoor?”
“Out of sight of the soldiers, aye?”
“Something like that.”
Between the two of them, they were able to pick the lock on the backdoor and get inside.
Ilse turned on lamps as she walked through the house, looking for her aunt. The house was disorganized, but not dirty. On the kitchen table, Ilse found a letter, the letter telling Aunt Karolina about the deaths of her husband and son. The ink was blurred in numerous places, she suspected from tears soaking the paper.
“I do not see her, do you?” she asked the man.
“Nein. Maybe check the bedroom?”
Ilse climbed the stairs, feeling the burn in her legs from her long bicycle ride. Her muscles had atrophied from lack of proper nutrition, and she was paying the price for that.
In the first bedroom they checked, they found her aunt sprawled out on the bed, one arm dangling over the edge. “Aunt Karolina, are you all right?” she said, rushing to her side. “Aunt Karolina?” She shook her.
Slowly, her aunt’s eyes opened. They were bloodshot, with puffy bags underneath. From crying? Ilse could understand that.
“Who are you?” She raised herself up on one elbow and opened her eyes. They quickly opened wider. “Ilse? Ilse Seidel? Is that you?”
“Ja. It is me. Are you all right?”
She shook her head. “My life is in tatters, beyond repair.” She sat upright and looked past Ilse. “Herr Hefner. What are you doing here?”
“Helping your niece. She tried ringing the bell, but there was no answer. We were worried and came in through the back.”
Aunt Karolina sighed, then said, “I never asked anyone for help.”
Ilse looked at Herr Hefner. She didn’t know how to respond or what to do. She’d come here to let Karolina know that her brother had died. How could she possibly tell her that now, after the poor woman had just lost her husband and son and had her other son leave for the war?
Herr Hefner reached out and took hold of Karolina’s hand. “Let us go downstairs and listen to some music. Do you still have your husband’s record albums? He would want you to listen to them and think about the good days.”
Karolina stared at him for some time, then got up, slowly, as if her bones ached. “I suppose you are right. I have not listened to music in ages.”
Ilse followed the two of them down the stairs. Her baby kicked twice, reassuring her that it was still alive, which she’d worried about since she’d felt nothing from the baby during the long bicycle ride. She touched her belly, but with the coat and sweater on, she doubted the baby could feel her touch.
Downstairs, she took off her coat and knapsack and laid them on a bench in the foyer. Karolina was putting a record on the record player.
Ilse stood, watching, unsure whether she should go into the living room and make herself comfortable, or wait to be invited. Karolina finally turned around and noticed Ilse.
“Come on, child. Join us and listen to the most beautiful music there is.”
Mozart played on the record player as Ilse sat down on a chair and closed her eyes. She hadn’t heard music in years, and listening now, and resting her tired body, she felt like she could melt into the furniture.
She must have dozed off, because the music had stopped and she didn’t remember listening to the whole concerto. Karolina was putting another record on, and Herr Hefner was gone.
“Did your friend go home?” Ilse asked.
“Ja. He is old and said he needed to get to bed. You were sleeping pretty good yourself. Did you ride a bicycle here?”
“I did. It was tiring, but it felt good, too.”
“Why did you come here? Did you hear about Markus and Mathias?”
“I did. I am so sorry for your loss, Aunt Karolina.” Ilse felt guilty for not telling her why she’d really come, but at least it wasn’t a complete lie. She did hear about the loss, just from Herr Hefner. “Is there anything I can do to help you? Do you need help planning their funerals?”
“There will be no funerals.” Her aunt’s features darkened. “Not right now, anyway. I might never get their bodies.”
She shouldn’t have asked that question. How thoughtless of me. She should have remembered that’s the same thing that happened with Vater. And now she was upsetting her aunt all over again.
“We can still have a memorial service for them. I can help you arrange that if you would like.”
“Nein. Who would come? Most of the men and boys are away. The women are busy worrying about their men and how to feed and protect their young. Nein. It is not the time. Maybe later.”
“What can I do? Do you want me to go home? I would really like to stay for a while.” She hesitated, looking at her aunt, and wondering if she could trust her. “I . . . had a loss, myself, a few months ago. My boyfriend was killed. I am carrying his child and no one knows. You are the first person I have told.”
Karolina didn’t respond right away, and Ilse worried she’d throw her out on the street.
“You can stay here with me,” she said, finally. “Tell your mother that I need help. Tell her I am too upset about losing my son and husband, and that now with Hermann away, too, I cannot manage on my own. She will let you stay. Then you can hide the pregnancy. They will never know.”
Ilse was stunned. Did her aunt really mean that? Could that really work?
“You would do that for me? You will help me?”
“What else do I have?” Karolina said. “I am all alone in this big, empty house.”
Ilse got up and went to her aunt, kneeled beside her, and took hold of her hands. “I promise not to be a burden. I will get a job and help pay for supplies and utilities. I will help cook and clean and do the laundry.”
Karolina chuckled. “You do not have to sell me, child. I am happy to have you here. We will be good for each other.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Lucas Landry, August 2017, Sacramento, California—
LUCAS PULLED HIS Jeep into the garage. Tawny wasn’t home yet, but that was okay, because he really needed to take another look at his papers and see if he’d missed something. Oh, God, he felt more confused than ever about his family’s past. The identity cards he’d found in the attic all showed that the people in his family—assuming that’s what they really were—were of Aryan race. That made sense and that agreed with his belief. If they’d been Jewish, they would have been taken to concentration camps or killed straightaway. None of that happened, as far as he could tell from the diaries he’d read so far. That being the case, it must have been his American side of the family that was Jewish, assuming his grandfather was American, which he didn’t have confirmation of, yet. Tom Landry. The name certainly sounded American, although the man could have changed it when he immigrated, if he immigrated and hadn’t grown up in Germany. But if he was American, how did he end up living in Germany and marrying a German woman? The wife must have been German, right? That’s what Anna and Elsa had said. They, the aunts, and their parents, had spoken German in their home in Germany, and they still had German relatives over there. Crap. Why the hell didn’t Tom Landry write a diary?
In the house, Lucas set down the folder on his desk and pulled out the papers. He found the family tree drawings and spread them out. Okay, one of the missi
ng pieces was the Landry section. Maybe if he drew up that section of tree, using the data his aunts had given him, it would start to fill in the puzzle. It couldn’t hurt, right? Well, with the way it had been going, maybe it could. Oh well, moving forward.
He grabbed a piece of blank paper from the printer tray and started writing his great-grandparents’ names on the Landry side: William and Rachel Landry. Below their names, their children: Ron, Teresa, and Tom, Tom’s wife, Emelie, and Teresa’s husband, Arthur. He didn’t know any of their birthdates yet. He wrote Jewish beside their names with a question mark. He drew three vertical lines and started filling in the rest of the family data, going forward. Their children’s names and birthdates, their spouses names, and then drew more vertical lines, listing their children, their spouses, their children’s children, and on down the line.
He sat back and studied the pages as a whole. Okay, this was all well and good, but what he was still missing was linkage between all the families—between the Nagels, the Seidels, and the Landrys. He scratched his head.
If he couldn’t find the answers here, he might have to fly to Germany and look there. Crap! That’s where most of their documentation would hopefully be, if it wasn’t destroyed during the war. And maybe if he could talk to some of those supposed German ‘relatives’ over there, they might give him what he needed. But he couldn’t very well take vacation now. He needed to save his vacation for when the baby came. Besides that, Tawny couldn’t travel in the last couple months of pregnancy, and he couldn’t leave her alone for a couple of weeks while he gallivanted around Europe.
No. He couldn’t go. Not now. Maybe not this year.
The garage door opened. Lucas quickly stuffed all his papers back into the zippered folder and stood up.
“You’re home,” Tawny said, walking in the door. “I thought we would get here before you.”
Bianca ran across the room and threw her arms around Lucas’s legs. “Daddy, daddy, I got to swim today. It was really, really, really fun.” She looked up at him, smiling.
He reached down and scooped her up in his arms. “I’m proud of you, munchkin, for learning to swim at such a young age. Would you believe I didn’t learn how until I was a grown up?”
“Daddy, you’re kidding me.” Bianca punched him on the chest and smiled.
“I am not kidding. I was afraid of the water. But you are fearless, my little munchkin.”
She laughed, and he set her back down. She took off running up the stairs. In the last couple of months, she’d become an expert on stair climbing and descending.
Lucas strode over to the entry and hugged Tawny. “Did you have fun shopping with your mom?”
“Oh, indeed. The best. I have a car full of baby stuff, which I don’t want to unload until tomorrow. I’m beat.”
“What other baby stuff did we need? I thought we mostly had everything left over from when Bianca was a baby.”
“Mostly we did. We got a double stroller.”
He pulled back from her and stared. “Is there something you haven’t told me?”
“No. Not twins. At least not that I know. But with a double stroller, Bianca can ride, too. She gets tired easily. And Mom says it will help her bond with the new baby.”
Yeah, sounds like hogwash to me. He didn’t tell her that.
“We got more baby clothes. The baby is a boy, so we needed boy things. And some of Bianca’s baby clothes were pretty stained and didn’t survive.”
She took off her shoes and tossed them on the floor near the front door, instead of setting them on the shoe rack.
And women say men are sloppy.
“That doesn’t sound like a car full of stuff,” Lucas said.
“Oh, well, there’s more. Newborn diapers, bottles, sterilizing equipment, a really nice dresser/changing table combo. And a few toys and clothes for Bianca.”
Again, Lucas stared.
“Don’t worry. I didn’t break the bank. Mom paid for most of the stuff. She said she intends to spoil her grandchildren. They’re her only grandchildren. What could I do? I couldn’t say no.”
“It’s okay, I guess. I mean, we could afford it even if she didn’t pay for most of it. I just hope the kids won’t get too spoiled.”
Tawny said, “They won’t. How was your day? Did you get a lot of work done at your father’s house?”
He filled her in on what he’d found and on his visit with his aunts. He left out the part about them being Jewish. Not that she would have a problem with it. She wouldn’t. But it would likely have opened a can of worms—the dozens of questions kind.
“Are you going to go to Germany and meet with some of your relatives?” Tawny asked.
“Huh? How could I do that? No, I figure I can maybe try calling some of them. I might go on Ancestry.com, too. You know they advertise that on TV. Could help me with my search. Could be fun, too.” Oh, God, he couldn’t believe he was saying that. He was working on his genealogy. Wouldn’t Dad roll over in his grave?
“You should go to Germany. You have a passport. Remember, we got passports last year when we were thinking of going with Mom to Mexico for a trip? Why not take a quick trip to Europe? Like you said, we have the money.”
“Well, yeah, but I need to save up my vacation days for when the baby comes.”
“They have something called ‘family leave’ now. You can use that after the birth. Use your vacation days for your research.”
“No, think I’ll wait. Maybe we can go there as a family next year. I’ve got enough notes now. It can rest awhile.” There was that word again—awhile. He shook his head.
They let the conversation drop, and Tawny said, “I’ll get started making us something for dinner. We had tacos and burritos at the mall. Are sandwiches okay?”
“Yeah. Make two for me, though. Those really big sandwiches you make with like three inches of lunchmeat.”
“Okay little piggy, you got it,” she teased.
“Hey, I’m not a little piggy, just a piggy,” he teased back, glancing into his study on his way to the kitchen, remembering the drawings waiting for him in his zippered folder. They were calling out to him. Waiting for answers he didn’t have. His neck and shoulders tensed up again, threatening to give him a pounding headache. I don’t need this kind of tension in my life. That’s it. No more of this digging into the past. He would put all thought about his ancestry, his Jewish roots, and his troubled family relationships aside and get back to living his life. Who needed to dwell in the past? Not him.
The following week, on Thursday afternoon, he received a phone call from the head boss. She wanted to see him in her office in half an hour. Uh oh. As he walked down the long hall to her office, his stomach clenched. What was wrong? Had he made a mistake or pissed off a patient?
He knocked on the closed door, waited a moment, then opened the door.
“Oh, Lucas, there you are. Come in and sit,” Lucy Bryant said. Lucy was in her mid-fifties, tallish, with brown hair, brown eyes, and big rimmed eyeglasses. Not particularly threatening or scary looking, but she exuded an air of authority that said, don’t disobey me. Lucas rarely had contact with her. She was his supervisor’s supervisor. The person that nobody wanted calling them into her office. Like getting called to the principal’s office, he thought.
“You’re probably wondering why I asked you to come here,” she said.
He nodded. That was an understatement. Wondering? More like thinking I’m going in front of a firing squad.
“The company is in the process of opening new clinics. Have you heard anything about it?” She leaned back in her chair and gazed at him. Like the supreme psychologist talking to a patient or potential patient, looking as if she were a mind-reader. Apparently she wasn’t, because if she was, she would know how terrified everyone was of her. Or perhaps she did know.
“Uh, I remember hearing something about that in a staff meeting at the end of last year, I believe.”
“That’s right.” She smiled. “We�
�re very proud that our clinics are doing well. That’s why we’re opening three more, one in Chino, one in Redding, and one closer to here. In Sacramento.”
He didn’t respond, wondering where she was going with this. Seeing his left knee was bouncing nervously, he intentionally stopped it. He hoped she hadn’t noticed.
She handed him a piece of paper with the addresses of the new clinics and maps showing their locations.
The Sacramento location was only a few blocks from his father’s house.
“We are hiring for all three clinics, and since many of the employees will be recent graduates doing internships, we need experienced therapists there, too, therapists who can serve as supervisors for the interns.”
Lucas’s heart rate quickened. Was this what he thought, was she promoting him?
“We’ve looked at employee records from several of our clinics, and spoken to each of their supervisors. You’re one of the employees we would like to send to either Chino or Sacramento to work with the new interns. For you we were thinking Sacramento. Would that interest you?”
He took a deep breath, trying not to let her see, then slowly let it out, nodding. “Yes, it would. I would, of course, have to talk this over with my wife. She works in a clinic here in Roseville.”
What would Tawny say? Of course she would be happy for him, but she’d recently been passed up for a promotion at the clinic where she worked. He hoped it wouldn’t reopen that wound.
“The clinic won’t open until mid-October and we won’t bring employees there until the beginning of October. As an incentive,” she said, “you would get four weeks paid vacation, leading up to your October first start date.”
Now his heart was thumping. Was this some kind of message? He didn’t want to move into the house, did he? If he lived there, he would have to confront the nagging mystery of his family’s past and the haunting memories of his parents.