It's You

by Jane Porter

  Edie looks startled. “You don’t need to do that.”

  “I know, but you’ve made me curious. And you’ve made me care . . . about you, and Franz, and your friends.”

  “It should be an interesting trip,” Craig says.

  I nod. “I think so. I’m really excited.” There’s a lift in my voice, an energy I haven’t felt in God knows how long. I’m going to do something different, and it’s a little scary, but scary is good. It’s a challenge. And a purpose.

  The scary is nudging me into action.

  The nudge might even shift the balance and weight of the world.

  Or maybe just shift the balance and weight within me.

  “Which hotel?” he asks.

  “The Mani.”

  “It’s in the Mitte,” Edie speaks up. “I don’t know the Mani, but I would think anywhere in the Mitte is good. “

  “You know that area, Aunt Edie?” Craig asks.

  “I know the area from when I lived in Berlin. Everyone did. It’s the center of the city and close to Museum Island and so many of the important buildings, including the lovely old apartment building Franz and I were living in until the raid in March 1944. That bombing wiped out our building and much of our neighborhood.”

  “Were you able to visit your old neighborhood in 1978 when you went with Grandma?” Craig asks.

  “No. My old neighborhood was on the other side of the wall.” Edie looks at me. “You know the wall cut through the city, and the Mitte was on the East German side, and I wasn’t allowed to travel from West Berlin to East Berlin. Not then.”

  “But the wall is down now,” I say.

  “Yes.” Edie is silent a moment. “I wonder what my neighborhood looks like now.”

  “I will take pictures.”

  “There’s no need—”

  “But I want to. I’m curious, too.”

  We are both quiet for a moment and then I muster my courage and ask her about something I’ve been wondering ever since I read the diary of Edie’s internment at Bad Nauheim. “Edie, you’ve told me about the Adlon, and the bombings, and Franz’s friends. But you never told me about your music. Whatever happened to your music, Edie? You’d gone to Germany to study. What happened after the war?”

  She shrugs. “I was done with it.”

  “Done with it?”

  “Yes, I put it behind me.”

  “Studying it, you mean?”

  “Studying, playing, listening—I was done. Alles. Das ist alles. I didn’t want music anymore, not the way I had before.” She pauses and her jaw tightens, her throat working. “How could I play . . . write . . . listen? I’d lost them all. Franz and my beloved friends . . . Claus, Adam, Peter . . .” Her voice fades and her eyes tear. “Johann, Wolfgang, Ludwig, Richard.” Her lips tremble. “I loved them, and then they were all gone.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  Edie

  Alison leaves and Craig walks her up to her father’s apartment.

  I remain at the small breakfast table in my apartment after they are both gone and I cry. I don’t ever cry, but I cry now.

  I miss my music. I miss my loves. I miss my life.

  I am old now and have so little time left. One of these days I will wake up like Ruth and not remember.

  I would rather die than not remember.

  I must remember, otherwise, they never mattered . . . might as well have never existed.

  It takes me a long time to calm myself, compose myself. Alison has no idea how much she’s upset me. I know she didn’t mean to upset me. It was a legitimate question. It’s one my family never asked. They must have simply assumed . . .

  If I were younger, I’d go to Berlin one last time.

  I’d like to see the new Berlin with the wall down.

  I didn’t like Berlin in 1978. My sister was repulsed by the checkpoints and soldiers with their automatic rifles, but for me, the shock and horror was visceral. It was as if I’d been thrust back into the war all over again. The uniforms. The guns. The fear.

  Standing at Checkpoint Charlie in 1978, the terror returned.

  I was afraid, and the anxiety didn’t lessen during the five days we spent in Berlin. I couldn’t wait to leave. We never went to Potsdam. Didn’t visit the gardens or summer palace. I couldn’t. How could I enjoy Berlin when I couldn’t breathe?

  TWENTY-TWO

  Ali

  It’s Saturday morning. Tomorrow I leave for Berlin. Today is my last day in Napa and I’m spending the morning at Bloom, giving Diana a hand with the last of the wedding bouquets and boutonnieres. We did the centerpieces yesterday—she, Carolyn, and I—and Carolyn’s good, a natural. She’s only been at the shop a few days, but with her design background and artistic eye, she has a flare for color and shape. She also makes Diana laugh. I’m glad to know that when I leave, Diana—and Bloom—will both be fine, although privately it’s a bit deflating to discover I’ve been so easily replaced. I’d kind of liked being Diana’s saving grace. Now I’m just a dentist again.

  Once the wedding flowers are off, I turn my attention to a special project. It’s a small good-bye gift to Edie and Ruth. I’d make one for my dad, but I don’t think he’d notice, or care.

  Carolyn offers to give me a hand. I tell her I’ve got it, and I do, because I want this to be from me. I want to give something to Edie, something to thank her for her time and her stories. She’s become my friend, although I’m not sure what she thinks of me, and that’s okay, too. Edie doesn’t have to like me. I’m the one that’s benefited from knowing her.

  As I fill the pair of tin window boxes with soil, and then add each of the flowers, Carolyn sweeps the shop floor and then gets busy cleaning the large front window. She’s humming as she works. I smile to myself, watching her.

  She reminds me of my mom. Busy, kind, warm.

  Happy.

  I used to think Andrew was the same way. Now I know there was more going on beneath the surface. He had problems—thoughts—fears he didn’t feel he could share with me. I wish I’d known. I wish he’d let me in, allowed me to help.

  Did any of us know he was unhappy? I don’t think so, and my mom—the former teacher—was so very perceptive.

  But I can’t blame her, or any of the others. No one was closer to Andrew than me. I slept in the same bed . . . cooked dinner with him . . . ran for miles at his side . . . we even showered together.

  How could I not know that Andrew was unhappy?

  How could I have missed all the signs?

  It makes me mistrust myself. Doubt my judgment. And in my work, my judgment is everything.

  I finish the two arrangements, galvanized window boxes I’ve filled with zinnias and dwarf dahlias in a riot of orange, red, pink, and purple.

  I call Dad before I leave Bloom, and ask him if he still wants to do dinner and bingo at the home, or if I could possibly take him out and do something special. It is, after all, my last night in Napa, and we have yet to go to any of the restaurants that he and Mom used to love. But he’s not interested in going out. He likes staying in, claiming it’s more comfortable and less stressful.

  “So dinner in the dining room?” I ask him.

  “Where else?” he barks.

  I make a face. He really could try to be a little nicer. “So what time should I meet you?”

  “What time will you be here?”

  “I’ve something for Edie, a gift I’ve made. I’ll go by her room first, and then I can be downstairs by six or six thirty.”

  “I don’t want to wait for you. I don’t like standing around waiting. Let’s just say six thirty.”

  “In the dining room.”

  “With all the boys?”

  I suppress a sigh. No use arguing with him. He is who he is. I’m not going to change him. “Whatever makes you happy.”

  • • •

  With the flower boxes in the trunk of Mom’s car, I go to the bank, withdraw money, stop at the dry cleaners, and then swing by Copperfields Bookstore to pick up the
travel books they ordered for me on Berlin and Germany.

  It’s almost five thirty when I arrive at Napa Estates, and I take Ruth’s flower box to her first since I’m not sure when Memory Care actually serves patients their dinner, or what their visiting-hour schedule is. The TV is on in Memory Care’s lounge. Half of the residents are asleep. The other half stare blankly at the TV. I find Ruth sleeping in a recliner in a corner by the window, the late-afternoon light slanting across the floor, streaking her lap. She looks very small, almost like a child. Her mouth gapes open and she’s snoring very softly. If I had a blanket I’d pull it over her legs, tuck it around her waist.

  We come into life helpless. We age and time renders us helpless. Hopefully in between we are loved. Hopefully we have good people around us.

  There’s a small table at Ruth’s elbow and the nurse gives me permission to place the window box on it there—but only temporarily since the flowers and plants aren’t all edible—but at least Ruth will see it when she wakes.

  This will be me one day, I think, as I lean over to kiss Ruth on the forehead. One day I won’t do anything but sleep and stare at the TV.

  Thank God I’m trying to live life now.

  Returning to the reception desk in the lobby, I retrieve the second window box and head for the elevator.

  I’m a little bit nervous as I exit the elevator on the second floor and walk to Edie’s room. I hope she’ll like the flowers. I wanted to do something for her, give something to her, as she’s given so much to me.

  “I brought you something,” I say, when Edie answers the door. “I thought you might enjoy a little bit of color.”

  She glances down at the window box.

  “I made one for Ruth, too, but the nurse isn’t sure they can keep it in the Memory Care lounge since some of the patients eat flowers and leaves and things, but maybe Ruth can enjoy yours on the weekends when she comes here for a cup of tea.”

  Edie looks up at me, frowning.

  She doesn’t like the window box. She doesn’t understand the significance.

  “You said dahlias were—”

  “Show-offs,” she says shortly, interrupting me. “I remember. I’m old, not dead.”

  I smile, and it just keeps growing, the smile filling me, and taking over my face, making my cheeks feel fat and my jaw ache.

  “My mother loved dahlias, too,” I say. “And you have a perfect spot for a window box—right in that window in your kitchen, where it gets lots of light.”

  “We’re not allowed to hang things from our windows.”

  “But it goes in here, in the kitchen, on the inside. It’s an indoor garden, and the flowers have their own little watering tray already tucked down in the bottom of the window box.”

  “And how do you propose I hang that thing in my window that ‘gets lots of light’?”

  “I’m sure Craig could figure out a way. If he can remodel that house—”

  “I’m not going to call and ask Craig to come here to hang a window box.”

  “You don’t have to ask him. I’m sure he’ll offer. He loves doing nice things for you.”

  She harrumphs, and steps back, opening the door wide. “Come in,” she says, grumpily. I hope this is just an act. I hope she’s pleased by my gift. Hard to tell with Edie, though. “And I suppose Craig wouldn’t mind hanging it up. We’ll find out. He’s supposed to be here soon. He’s bringing us dinner.”

  “Us dinner?”

  “Yes. Us, dinner.” She gives me a look, eyebrows arching, lips pressed thin. “It’s your good-bye dinner. A bon voyage thing.”

  • • •

  Dad appears at Edie’s door at six on the dot. He’s put on a navy plaid button-down shirt and is looking decidedly handsome. “What are you doing here?”

  “I have a dinner party to attend.”

  “Where?”

  “Here.”

  “Here?”

  “Yes, now may I come in?”

  Still confused, I give him a hug as he enters Edie’s apartment. “But what about your buddies, Dad? Are they coming, too?”

  “Do you want them here? I could invite them up. After all, it’s your good-bye party.”

  I glance from Dad to Edie. “You knew about this?”

  “It was my idea,” she says smugly. “Fortunately, your dad knows how to keep a secret.”

  “Yes, he does,” I agree.

  Craig arrives ten minutes later with bags of Chinese takeout.

  “Bill, Ali,” he says to us, before kissing his aunt’s cheek. “Hope I haven’t kept you waiting long. There was some traffic.”

  “No problem at all,” Dad says.

  I watch Craig carry the white paper bags to the kitchen. “When were you roped in?” I ask him, reaching into the cupboards for plates.

  “Probably the same time Aunt Edie roped in your dad,” he answers. “And we have all my aunt’s favorites. Peking duck, Hunan beef, Shanghai dumplings, green beans, garlicky bok choy, lo mein, and fried rice. Did I forget anything?”

  Edie smiles at him. “No. Sounds as if you got the order right.”

  We don’t actually end up eating at the table, but instead sit on her pair of love seats, Dad and I squished together on one, with Edie and Craig on the other. We use the throwaway chopsticks and balance our plates on our laps. Everyone handles the chopsticks pretty well but Edie is probably the most comfortable. I don’t know why I’m surprised. I know she’s well traveled but I forget how much she’s lived.

  Over tea and fortune cookies, Edie says she’s been thinking about my upcoming trip all day. “You can’t just go to Berlin to see the memorials. You can’t go to only see the scars. They are there. And they are ugly, so ugly that if you look at them and just at them, you will be completely repelled. So if you go, you must go to see all of it. You must go and see the beautiful things and the Berlin so many of us loved so dearly.”

  Edie studies her fortune cookie, which she hasn’t yet broken. “Berlin is an old, old city, dating back to 1237, and the capital of the German kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was known for its leaders, its army, its courage. What happened in the twentieth century is dreadful—amoral—but it is just one piece of Prussia’s history. So when you go, look for Prussia. Look for the art and architecture, as well as the culture that makes Berlin unique.”

  “But the Berlin you loved is gone,” I say. “Both the Adlon and the opera house . . . ?”

  “Yes, the Adlon and the Staatsoper Unter den Linden were destroyed in 1945 at the very end of the war, but I understand the East Germans rebuilt the Staatsoper in the 1950s and when you were showing me pictures on the Internet we saw that there is a new hotel named the Adlon where the original once was. Craig said he’s stayed there before. It’s nice, isn’t it?” Edie looks at him for confirmation.

  “Very nice,” he agrees. “It’s one of my favorite hotels in Berlin.”

  “Expensive,” my dad says.

  “Five stars. Luxury.”

  “But it’s not my Adlon, no,” Edie adds. “But I still think it’s worth a visit, if only to have a cocktail and toast Herr and Frau Adlon who were so very kind and courteous and brave throughout the war. I adored Herr Adlon. But we all did. And the way he died, the way—” She breaks off, shakes her head. “Don’t want to talk about that. His memory deserves better.” She straightens her shoulders. “But do go, and have a drink, or a lunch, and then have a walk down Unter den Linden and savor the dappled shade and sunshine.”

  I rise and go to my purse to retrieve my notebook and pen. “What else?” I ask, ready to take notes.

  “If you can, you really should go to Potsdam. It’s just outside the city and for hundreds of years it was the home of the Prussian kings and you can still tour two of the palaces, Sanssouci, with its extraordinary gardens, and the Cecilienhof Palace, which is actually not very old as palaces go, and looks like a hunting lodge, not a palace, but it’s famous today as the place where Churchill, Stalin, and Truman met for the Potsdam Conferenc
e in July 1945. If you’re short on time, I would recommend Sanssouci for the palace and gardens, and then stop for some cake and coffee late afternoon at one of the Konditoreis at the little square across from the palace. Germany is famous for its bakeries and you should try as many sweets and pastries as you can.”

  “Do you have a favorite I must try?”

  “All of them!” Her eyes sparkle as she laughs, the laugh surprisingly girlish. “Germans love their sponge cakes with layers of fruit and whipped cream, as well as the rich chocolate Sacher torte, and almond-flavored sweets. But for me, there is nothing like Zwetschgenkuchen, straight from the oven. I spent many years trying to find a recipe to make a proper plum tart, but nothing ever tasted as good as the buttery, tart but sweet Zwetschgenkuchen I had in Germany.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Drink. Beer. Wine—”

  “Wine,” Craig emphasizes.

  “Eat,” she continues still smiling. “Listen to music. Go to the opera. Meet people. Make friends. Enjoy.” She smiles almost wistfully. “Enjoy yourself. That is what you must do if you go. Do not be the timid American tourist, afraid to venture out. If you are brave enough to go, then explore. Take it all in. Make it yours. That’s what I would do.”

  Then that is what I will do, too.

  • • •

  Dad excuses himself at ten to eight as he has a program he watches at eight and he doesn’t want to miss it. I offer to walk him back and he frowns at me. “Why? You think I need protection?”

  I just shake my head and kiss him good-bye, telling him I will come see him in the morning before I go, and then for a bit it’s just Craig, Edie, and me, making small talk over my cups of tea.

  Then Edie rises and starts for the guest room.

  “Do you need help, Aunt Edie?” Craig asks.

  She stops, turns around. “Can you get one of my boxes down? I want the Berlin years.”

  “Of course I can. Come sit back down.”

  But she doesn’t sit back down on her loveseat. She comes to sit next to me on mine. Craig hands her the box and she takes off the lid, and carefully goes through the small boxes and bundles of letters and envelopes until she comes to a dark brown leather book on the bottom. She draws it out, running a light hand across the dark leather cover as Craig sets the box on the coffee table.