It's You

by Jane Porter

  “Wasn’t it difficult to replace him?”

  “He was never replaced. You don’t replace someone like Franz, and yet at the same time, I was twenty-four, and he was gone. He wasn’t coming back. What was I to do? Never care for anyone again? Never need anyone again? Never crave companionship or tenderness? I was too young to be alone for the rest of my life.”

  “So you fell in love—a second time.”

  “Yes, because Bob was nothing like Franz. I didn’t want to love someone like Franz, and I don’t think I could have. Bob was older, and mature, and so very protective of me.”

  “Not that protective if he went off to Korea leaving you behind.”

  “We both knew Korea would be dangerous, but I don’t think either of us expected him to die there. He was intelligence. He wouldn’t be on the front line.”

  I glance down at the cluster of photos on the table, seeing him tucked between the old-fashioned black-and-white photo of two little girls in matching sailor dresses with ringlets and huge white silk bows in their hair, and a picture of Edie with her blonde, teenage nephews, Craig and Chad.

  Bob is still smiling into the camera. He’s not a handsome man. He doesn’t look dashing, but he does look kind.

  “Edie, I just can’t believe he’d leave you for war.”

  She shrugged. “He wouldn’t have gone if I’d asked him to stay.”

  “No?”

  “He asked my opinion. He wanted to know what I thought. I understood why he felt compelled to go. I respected his sense of duty and honor.” She hesitates. “And to be honest, I thought he’d come back. I was sure he’d come home. I didn’t think I’d lose him.”

  “Did you feel guilty?”

  “Angry, shocked, guilty and . . . heartbroken. Heartbroken,” she repeats. “I received the telegram on Christmas Day. I’ve never wanted to celebrate Christmas since. And perhaps the greatest tragedy is that it was a non-combat accident. He was in the same jeep with General Walker. Their vehicle was struck by a speeding truck. It could have happened anywhere . . . here, there. It wasn’t enemy fire, or friendly fire. It was a speeding truck.”

  I don’t know what to say. I don’t have the words. But I would like to hug her.

  I’d like to tell her how much I admire her as well as her tremendous courage and strength, but she’s holding herself tall, and still, and there is too much distance between us, between our generations.

  I don’t know if there ever would be a right time to close the distance. I’m not sure I’d even know how to close the distance. Edie is a prickly old lady, with fierce spirit and an iron core, someone who doesn’t invite praise or compliments.

  And I like her all the better for it.

  I hope one day to be just as fierce and prickly as dear feisty Edie.

  “I’m sorry,” I finally murmur.

  “I am sorry, too,” she answers. “Just as I wished for many years that there had been a child. But just as with Franz . . . it wasn’t meant to be.”

  “I don’t think I could handle what you’ve been through.”

  “It was difficult, but how could I ever feel sorry for myself when I still had my family? When I knew my mother and my sister were safe? When our home wasn’t bombed, our possessions weren’t confiscated? How could I give up, or complain, or feel self-pity when so many others . . . when millions of people . . . were starved? Murdered?

  “What happened might have been seventy years ago,” she adds, her voice growing stronger. “But it was real. It wasn’t just something made up and put in a book. It was life. My life. The lives of those all around me.”

  “It’s unthinkable to my generation.”

  She laughs, a low hollow sound. “As it once was to mine.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  The KLM jet touches down with the slightest of bumps, a smooth landing following a smooth flight. I slept most of the way and so far the entire journey feels deceptively easy, making me wonder as I pass through customs, why I’ve waited so long to travel.

  I haven’t been out of the country in years. There wasn’t a lot of time, not with school and then work, but I suppose we could have tried harder to make time. Andrew was always itching to get on a plane, go somewhere exotic, be adventurous, hike, explore. Machu Picchu. Patagonia. Zambia. Bali. Marrakech.

  It didn’t happen.

  Instead we worked, and worked, and he ran, and ran.

  We did have a trip booked for our honeymoon. We were supposed to go to the Amalfi Coast for ten days, and we had the flights into Rome, and the train to Naples where a driver would take us to our hotel in Positano.

  My mom handled cancelling the honeymoon since Andrew’s parents were too distraught. She also helped organize sending copies of his death certificate to get the money back from the airline when they weren’t going to refund. They had only wanted to offer a ticket against future travel. Mom, who doesn’t ruffle easily, lost it with the customer service agent for not understanding that there would be no future travel for Andrew. “What part of dead do you not understand?” she snapped.

  Now here I am, fifteen months after his death, in the back of a cab heading from the Berlin airport to my hotel.

  Sunshine fills the cab. The streets are wide and clean and the traffic isn’t too bad since the morning rush is over.

  The taxi driver tells me in excellent English that the weather is supposed to be nice most of the week, with maybe just a little rain Tuesday and Wednesday. “You’re lucky you weren’t here last week,” he adds, looking at me in the rearview mirror. “It rained for a week straight, and was cold. The tourists weren’t happy.”

  “Have you always lived in Berlin?” I ask him.

  “Yes. But not the DDR. West Berlin.”

  He’s hair challenged with crooked teeth and could be anywhere from mid-thirties to his late fifties. “So you were here when the wall came down in 1989?”

  “Yes.”

  “You remember it?”

  “Ja. Oh, yes. I was twenty-one, and it was incredible. Unbelievable. We met on the top of the wall, East Berliners, West Berliners. We shared beer and wine and we were all hugging and dancing in the streets. Who would have thought the wall would ever come down? Not in my lifetime.” His gaze meets mine in the rearview mirror. “But then, my mother said back in 1961, no one thought a wall would ever cut through the middle of Berlin in the first place. Life is strange. No one can ever predict what will happen.”

  “Your mother was a Berliner, too?”

  “Ja. But her family was all on the other side. The wall went up very fast. One day there was a barricade, but then in the following night, it became cement and stone, topped with barbed wire. There were guard towers. Soldiers with dogs and guns.” He shook his head. “My mother was cut off from her family. Eventually she could get a day pass to go visit them, but just for a day. Lots of police and security to get in, and even more to get out. It was depressing for her to go visit, too. The shops weren’t so good. The opportunities weren’t so good. The new buildings and architecture not good. Even the air, not good since it was hazy and gray from brown coal. The haze hung over the city, like a . . . depression.

  “A depression,” he repeats, nodding before shooting me another quick glance in the mirror. “It was hard for my mother to see her mother and aunts and cousins with less. Gradually she stopped going over, maybe just visiting once a year, and then once every couple of years.”

  “Did she ever stop her visits?”

  “When her mother died.”

  “You knew your grandmother, though?”

  “I met her when I was little, once or twice, but my mother was afraid to take me, just in case she couldn’t get back. There was always so much fear. Maybe this time she gets denied at the border. Maybe this time she’s trapped—” He breaks off, points out the window. “The new Reichstag, rebuilt after the reunification. Beautiful, yes?”

  It is a magnificent building topped with a huge dome. I’d seen photos of it in my Berlin travel guide.
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  I’m staring out the window, watching everything. “The Tiergarten.” He gestures. “And the Zoo. A very big park for the people. Nice for walking and family outings. I think it might be bigger than your Central Park in New York. That’s what a tourist told me. Not sure if it’s true.”

  “Victory Column,” he adds. “And there. See? Brandenburger Tor.”

  I know that one from poring over the photos with Edie. Brandenburg Gate. Which meant the Blücher Palace, which was once the American embassy, is just on the other side, and the old Adlon Hotel would have been another block east, with the opera house another couple blocks down Unter den Linden.

  I feel a bubble of excitement and pleasure. I’ve never been here but I feel as if I know it, which is strange and fascinating, as I never felt any interest in Berlin, or this part of Europe, until now.

  Thanks to my American education, I’d imagined Berlin as a vast industrial city, just as northern Germany was all smokestacks and autobahn and smog.

  Not sure why I thought that.

  “The Holocaust Memorial is over there.” The taxi driver nods to the far side of the Brandenburg Gate. “Some people like the design. Others hate it. Me, I am not a fan. Too much concrete.”

  I lean forward to try to get a better view, but can see nothing from here. We are blocks away and nothing is visible around the gate and buildings. “I’d heard it was supposed to be a forest.”

  “All I know is that it was sehr teuer. Very costly.”

  The driver continues to point out various landmarks along the way to the hotel, but the names and places blur. I slept for about four or five hours on the plane but I’m starting to feel the jet lag now. I could use coffee and a shower after my all-night flight, and maybe even a brief nap.

  We reach my hotel, the Mani, on Torstrasse, and I pay him for the ride, tipping him generously since he’d been quite helpful and I appreciated the tour.

  I’ve arrived at the hotel before the official check-in time but the front desk expedites my check-in so I can get to my room. The Wi-Fi is free and should allow me to get on my phone and I check that out first, and yes I’m able to get on my e-mail, send text messages, and Skype . . . not that I have anyone to Skype with.

  I do have several new text messages, though.

  Craig Hallahan wants to know if I’ve arrived safely. (Yes, Craig, thank you.)

  And Helene from the office texted to say that Dr. Morris has shingles and won’t be in the office for the next week at the very least. I’m not to hurry home, but she thought I’d want to know. (Thanks, Helene, for the bad news.)

  I drop the phone and close my eyes, tempted to nap. It’d be so easy to give in to sleep but it’s just noon now and it’s bright and sunny outside. I should go out and stretch my legs, and get my bearings. I’ve signed up for a city tour for tomorrow morning, with a walking tour in the afternoon, and then I’m off to Potsdam Tuesday for a palace day trip, and then Wednesday I’m going to visit the Holocaust Memorial, the Berlin Wall Memorial, and the Memorial to the German Resistance. I’d hoped to maybe attend an opera or symphony at the Opera House but I haven’t purchased tickets yet and right now am not sure I will. I don’t want to be booked up every minute of every day. I’d like to be able to sleep in and have time to wander, and sit in cafes and people watch.

  And so instead of jumping up and going out to explore, I close my eyes and give in to sleep. There is something so decadent and delicious about sleeping when you’re not supposed to be . . .

  I wake up hours later. I only know it’s hours later because the sun has shifted, the bright rays gone, the foot of my bed bathed in pale gold light, the light of late afternoon.

  I’ve slept deeply and I’m groggy.

  It requires effort to rise. My head thumps, heavy, reminding me that my sleep cycles are confused and I haven’t had enough caffeine today.

  I shower and dress, transferring my wallet and camera phone into a tote bag. I tuck in my map, a small dictionary, and travel books, and then add my notebook, too, where I’ve made note of everything Edie talked about. I’ve a list of the things I’m to visit and see. My goal is to take a picture of everything—or of the place something should be—and share my photos with her when I return.

  Thinking of Edie makes me think of Craig, and I’m conflicted when it comes to Craig. He’s interesting and smart and ridiculously attractive—three reasons why I need to keep my distance. I’m still struggling with losing Andrew. I’m not ready to feel anything for anyone.

  And yet, as I take the elevator down and nod at the girls at the front desk, I feel a giddy burst of possibility.

  I’m in Berlin. I’m having an adventure.

  I’m doing something wildly impulsive.

  The impulsiveness is exciting and frightening, and the adventure itself is actually bittersweet. Andrew would have loved this. He would have loved to be here with me, on a quest with me.

  After all, Andrew was the free spirit. It certainly wasn’t ever me.

  • • •

  I walk for over an hour, turning down narrow streets and winding through residential neighborhoods. The late-afternoon sunlight gives way to lavender shadows. Lights turn on and every couple of blocks cafes dot the four corners, tables and chairs spilling out onto the streets. The tables are full, singles and couples and families out for dinner, and even though it’s a Sunday evening (or is it because it’s a Sunday evening?) no one seems in a hurry to leave.

  Hungry, I loop back to my hotel, and start looking for a place to eat. There are Italian restaurants, Indian and Russian restaurants and Japanese sushi spots, but none of those appeal. It’s my first night in Berlin. I want German cuisine.

  I come across a place with an empty table beneath the front awning. I scan the chalkboard menu: Bier, Schnitzel, Wurst. Perfect. I seat myself, hoping I’m doing the right thing. The waiter approaches with a small menu. I have already practiced my German for the occasion. “Ein Bier, bitte,” I say, pleased I’ve remembered the right words.

  My pronunciation—or accent—must give me away. “What kind of beer?” the waiter asks in English.

  “A good German beer?”

  The waiter all but rolls his eyes. “Pils, an Alt, Kölsch, Weissbier . . . ?”

  I have no idea if those are names of beer, or labels. I glance around me, point to a tall glass on a table kitty-corner to my table. “Like that one.”

  “Pils.”

  “Yes. Danke schön.”

  His eyebrows lift satirically. He walks away, clearly not a fan.

  Okay, not the friendliest German I met today, but at least my taxi driver was very nice.

  • • •

  I sleep better than I expect, and the next morning, fortified with the hotel’s breakfast buffet and several cups of cappuccino, I’m ready to meet up with my bus tour.

  The young man at the front desk gives me directions to Alexanderplatz where I’ll meet my bus. It’s a hop-on, hop-off type tour that you listen to with a headset. If you don’t get off the bus anywhere, it’s a two-and-a-half-hour tour. I’m not planning on getting off anywhere today.

  The tour is a good overview of the city, and I learn things I didn’t know. I’d thought I was fairly clear on some of the key dates and details but after listening to two and a half hours of history and facts, I’m overwhelmed by the number of gates and tors, plots and plazas, boroughs, localities, and municipalities that have been included and then excluded by various political machinations and administrative reforms.

  The tour tries to give a sense of history, while sharing contemporary facts, such as the huge administrative reform in 2001 that swallowed everything up into one big city with twelve boroughs. Each of the boroughs has its own government which must answer to Berlin’s city and state government (since Berlin is both a city and one of Germany’s federal states.) I get that. But then when the narrator goes on to explain that each borough is made up of several localities, or sub-districts, that often have a strong historical identity as a
village or an independent town, and that within each locality is another cluster of tracts that somewhat compare to neighborhoods, I tune out, no longer able to listen.

  I put away my notebook and guidebook and map and just gaze out at the domes and parks and bridges.

  It’s impossible to learn everything about a city this old in one tour, which is why I’m signed up for the afternoon walking tour. I’ll have a live guide this time, and I’ll be able to ask questions when I don’t understand something.

  It’s five thirty when I finally return to the hotel, feet aching, and I’m definitely feeling the jet lag now and would love a nap but can’t do it today or I won’t sleep tonight.

  I sit at the small desk in the corner of my room and check messages and e-mail. I’ve a text from Dad wanting to know if I got in safely. I can’t believe I didn’t send him a message yesterday. I answer him and then send a message to Helene, asking how Dr. Morris is today. For a moment I’m tempted to send a message to Craig, telling him how amazing Berlin is, but that wouldn’t be smart. I can’t encourage him. I shouldn’t reach out to him. I shouldn’t want to reach out to him. He lives in Napa, I live in Scottsdale. Nothing is going to happen.

  I eat an early dinner at a restaurant a block from the hotel, and go to bed early, desperate for sleep.

  • • •

  In the morning the hotel doorman hails a cab for me, sending me to the meet-up point for this morning’s Potsdam and Dresden palace tours. It’s not until I’m actually on the private bus, heading to Dresden that I discover I’ve booked the wrong tour. We’re not going to Potsdam today. That’s a separate tour entirely, a four-hour tour. Today’s trip to Dresden is a ten-hour tour, with two hours’ driving each way.