Hans was not the only one to notice the appearance of Johann Wiessmeyer. Gisela turned to whisper something into her sister Sabine’s ear. Hans used the opportunity of their private conversation to shuffle forward.
“Herr Munter! You’re looking well today!” Sabine’s greeting was loud and full of false sincerity.
“And how are you feeling this morning, Herr Bürgermeister?” Regina added.
“I am well, Frau Mecklen, Fräulein Mecklen, very well, thank you,” Hans said. Feeling uncomfortable, he cast his eyes downward to the safety of the pastries and baked goods. He had never been good with compliments, especially those so obviously disingenuous. “I believe I shall try one of your pastries here.”
“Well, Herr Bürgermeister, you know our pastries better than anyone, of course,” Regina reminded him.
“Indeed I do, Frau Mecklen, indeed I do.” Hans considered the collection of strudel, linzerschnitten, and mandelbrot thoughtfully. “While I’m making up my mind, I wonder if you might be able to get a few white brötchen for me, Fräulein Mecklen, my dear?”
“White ones?” Sabine glanced over to her older sister.
“I’m so sorry, Herr Bürgermeister,” Regina apologized quickly, “but we have no more white brötchen this morning. I’m afraid Frau Eberhardt cleaned me out entirely. But do let us get you some of our rye ones while Sabine helps our dear Pastor Wiessmeyer.” Hans’s face fell. He could not abide brötchen made with rye flour, the norm for wartime bread. They were hard and heavy, better used for athletic games than breakfast.
The only woman who had been able to do anything with rye flour was Miriam Rosenberg. Hans sighed, thinking back on that lovely lady. So much energy in such a petite frame. Her pale, translucent skin and wide brown eyes suggested delicacy, but her wiry arms and ready smile revealed vitality. And such beautiful pastries! Miriam Rosenberg was more than a baker, she was an artist of dough.
When the family left so suddenly, there had been murmurs around town that the Mecklens were somehow involved, that they had complained to the regional Liaison for Enforcement of National Socialism about the presence of a Jewish family, and indeed one day a LENS official had appeared in Hans’s office asking for directions to Gisela Mecklen’s house. Hans had had no idea why the man was there and was eager to get rid of him. He had pointed him in the direction of the Mecklens’ neighborhood. Shortly thereafter, Gisela was seen parading the man around town.
Hans did not want to think ill of people, nor did he believe in connecting dots that needn’t be connected, particularly when doing so involved him in business not his own. The flurry of rumors that the Rosenbergs had been taken by storm troopers in the dead of night had never been substantiated. Hans liked to think that the Rosenbergs were happily baking brötchen and cakes somewhere in Switzerland, where the baking competition was less keen.
“Good morning, ladies.” Johann Wiessmeyer bowed slightly upon his arrival. Sabine giggled, bosom bouncing. “I wonder, Fräulein Mecklen,” Johann said, addressing Sabine, whose tittering face was now colored by a deep blush, “whether you might be able to offer a hungry man of the cloth some sustenance?”
“Oh, Herr Pastor, it is so good to see you this morning!” Sabine gushed, smoothing her flour-coated apron over her belly with small, plump hands. She quickly tucked a coil of hair behind her ear, dusting her cheek with flour as she did so. “But you are late today, you almost missed the white brötchen,” she chided. Though Sabine tried to lower her voice, it was impossible for Hans not to hear the exchange. “I have, however, set aside a few just for you, Father. I know how much you like them.” She gave Johann the broadest, winningest smile she knew—Hans thought her face resembled that of a laughing horse—and ducked under her table to retrieve the wrapped bundle. “Here they are,” her muffled voice announced, and she popped back up, her belly knocking a large piece of strudel off the counter and into the dirt as she handed the package to Johann. Hans Munter looked at the strudel unraveling in the sun, quickly attracting the attention of ants and flies. He gave Sabine a questioning look. She ignored him.
“Thank you so much, dear lady,” Johann said, bowing again, more deeply. “I am so very grateful.” He fished through his pocket and handed Sabine several coins. “And though God’s work is never a burden, I must say it is much easier to do when His servants are nourished by such excellent food.” Sabine’s blush and wide smile seemed permanent fixtures, and she nodded her head a bit too wildly in enthusiastic receipt of Johann’s compliment. The face, Hans decided, really looked more like a donkey’s than a horse’s.
“And Marina,” Johann said, acknowledging Edith and Marina at the edge of the small crowd, “we have a rendezvous later this morning, do we not?”
In an instant, Sabine Mecklen’s smile crumbled, and a low-toned hiss escaped her lips, sending a light spray of spittle over the remaining strudel. Hans decided to avoid the pastries in her vicinity. The hiss caught Gisela Mecklen’s attention, and she turned from the customer she was attending just in time to see Johann putting a hand on Marina’s shoulder.
“Yes, Johann, I have not forgotten,” Marina said. “Café Armbruster at nine.”
“Excellent, I will see you then. Farewell, Fräulein Mecklen.” Johann waved his hand in departure, but Sabine and Gisela were both too intent on glaring at Marina to notice. As Marina gathered her children, oblivious to their scowls, Gisela put an arm around Sabine and whispered something in her ear. The younger sister nodded emphatically.
Hans watched the young Thiessen girls, Rosie and Sofia, leave the fountain where they had been playing and skip along behind their mother. The lightness of their being made him happy, the way they ran through the world on the balls of their feet instead of plodding as he did, their exuberance at living in the moment instead of reexperiencing the terrors of the past. Perhaps he could learn from them, he thought. He could be grateful that he was here today, in this marvelous market, before these pungent pastries.
He returned to the task at hand and finally made his choice—a slice of linzerschnitten. Before Dr. Schufeldt had let Hans leave the clinic this morning, he had warned him to be more judicious in his food choices. More fruits and nuts, the doctor said. More vegetables. Fewer sausages. There were walnuts and hazelnuts in the linzerschnitten’s lattice crust, and blackberries in the filling, Hans told himself. Just what the doctor ordered.
– Twelve –
“Stop right there, Old Shatterhand!” Max Fuchs stood on top of a pile of mailbags outside the Blumental post office. He was threatening Willie Schnabel with a long, skinny twig that he had chewed to a rough point. “Go no further or I, Intschu-tschuna, the greatest chief of all the Apache tribes, will pierce your heart with the arrow that my great-great-grandfather crafted from the horn of the sacred bison!”
“I am not afraid of you, Intschu-tschuna,” Willie said, pulling from his back pocket a shorter, fatter branch and waving it at his rival. “Your arrow is no match for my revolver!” Willie knelt down in the hard dirt, wrapping both hands around his branch and squinting his right eye as he pointed it straight at Max.
Max threw back his head and tried to laugh menacingly. “You dare to threaten me, Old Shatterhand? Ha ha ha! I scoff at the pride of the white man!”
Suddenly, to both Max’s and Willie’s surprise, Ralf Winzel’s head popped out from between the mailbags. “And I—” Ralf grunted, trying to wriggle his body out from the mass of canvas sacks so he could clamber up next to Max, “I am Winnetou, firstborn son of the great Intschu-tschuna and future leader of all the Apache tribes.”
Max sighed. He did not want Ralf in this game, but he knew better than to challenge him directly—he had seen that fist split too many lips. Still, Max owed it to Willie to try to get rid of him. “Um, Ralf. Sorry, Winnetou isn’t in this one.”
“Well, he is now, because he’s here to ambush Old Shatterhand in a surprise attack!” Ralf smirked, using his foot to dislodge several of the larger mailbags at the top of the hea
p. “A rock slide!” Six or seven heavy sacks tumbled down all at once, lumbering slowly and haphazardly enough to give Willie plenty of time to get out of their way.
“You know nothing about Winnetou, Ralf,” Willie taunted. “He’s too noble for a sudden ambush. He’s virtuous and true.”
Max smiled inwardly at Willie’s characterization of the Native American hero. Between the two of them, he and Willie had almost every book about Winnetou that their favorite author, Karl May, had ever written. The first, which introduced the cowboy Old Shatterhand, was so worn and tattered from frequent readings that Max had had to tape its spine. In his games with Willie, Max always played one of the Indians, partly because he had gathered enough duck feathers over time to make a passable headdress for Intschu-tschuna, but also because he liked the fact that the Indians remained true to themselves and their beliefs. They knew who they were and stuck with it. Willie preferred the cowboys. He loved guns.
“Ralf Winzel, what are you doing?” Ludmilla Schenk’s voice was far louder than seemed possible for her petite frame. The boys looked over to the post office, where Frau Schenk made her way down the steps carrying a bundle of envelopes in her hands, stooping over as if they were heavy. Max hurried down to help.
“Here, Frau Schenk, I’ll take those for you.” As he grabbed the bundle from her arms, he realized they weren’t heavy at all.
“Thank you, Max.” Frau Schenk leaned on a nearby hitching post and stood quietly for a moment, gathering her breath. Max felt sorry for her. She looked much older than she used to. Max remembered—it wasn’t that long ago—when she stood tall on the post office porch, her long brown hair tied in a loose braid. She had always smiled as he passed her on his way to school. These days she put her graying hair up in a bun and looked even more tired than his mother. But the postmistress still had some strength and outrage, as she demonstrated now.
“Ralf, if you do not get down from those mailbags this instant, I will grab your arms and legs, tether them together, and put you in a sack headed to Antarctica.” Her voice was low and gravelly, like a bear’s growl. “And do not for a moment doubt the unpleasantness of that experience, for you will be tossed and sorted with all the other oversize packages, many of which weigh five times as much as you do, and I truly doubt all your bones would survive intact.” Frau Schenk waited while Ralf scrambled down. She turned to Max.
“You might as well hang on to those envelopes, Max,” she said. “These invitations were just dropped off by Herr Weber’s secretary. She was insistent that they be delivered as soon as possible. Some sort of concert going on at the Weber estate tomorrow night, I gather. Apparently very last-minute.”
Max was surprised to hear that Klaus Weber, renowned recluse of Blumental, was having any kind of party. He’d thought the famous composer had settled on the Bodensee because he hated cities and the people in them. Every time Max tried to sneak into the Weber estate, he was shooed away by the guards who patrolled it.
Max flipped through the envelopes Frau Schenk had handed to him. There weren’t many, maybe fifteen or twenty. If he worked his way eastward from the west side of town, it might take an hour and a half, maybe less if he could convince Willie to help him. Then he could go over to the East Blumental train station and check for spies again. “Of course, Frau Schenk, no problem.”
The postmistress patted Max on the back. “You’re a dear boy, Max. I’ll pay you a bit extra for today.” Max colored and saw Ralf Winzel smirk at the words dear boy. He would hear those words again in some future taunt, he knew. Suddenly Frau Schenk turned her head. “Oh, Lara, how lovely you look today.” Lara Thiessen was coming up the path.
Lara. Max had been in love with her since he was ten years old, but she was too beautiful to pay any attention to him. Now he was approaching twelve, very close to manhood. Soon, perhaps, he might grow a mustache, and then his prospects with her would be more favorable. In the meantime, he wooed her with gifts. Last winter, it had been a stone that he found on the beach near the boat pier, perfectly flat for skipping across the water. Once cleaned and polished, it was a beautiful gray color that reminded him of November fog. In the spring, he had collected forget-me-nots and pressed them flat, then glued them onto a piece of paper in the shape of a heart. He had left both of these presents on the Eberhardt front doorstep, running away before anyone could see him.
Frau Schenk was right, Lara looked lovely, but then she always did to Max. Today she was wearing a yellow sundress with a short flouncy skirt that showed off her long legs, and a sweater. Her silky blond hair was tied back in a ponytail that swung from side to side, keeping the same rhythm as the sway of her hips. Max was mesmerized and muted, watching her walk toward him.
“Thank you, Frau Schenk. My opa is coming home today. We’re preparing a big lunch for him.” Lara smiled as she passed Max and climbed the stairs. Her ponytail swished suddenly to the right, brushing his shoulder. “Good morning, Max.”
Max could neither speak nor move. It was possible he had stopped breathing. But Ralf Winzel’s voice was intact. “Hey, Lara! Bea-uuu-tee-ful Lara! Wanna join our game and be an Indian princess?” Lara paused on the top step and squinted at Ralf, fixing her blue eyes on him for a silent half minute. She snorted with disdain and walked inside.
“Too bad,” Ralf said. “She would have made a good Nscho-tschi. She could have begged our father to spare your life, Old Shatterhand. Plus, it would have been even numbers, two against two.” He shook his head in mock disappointment. “Tough luck, Willie boy, you’ll just have to hope the cavalry sends in reinforcements.” Willie, however, had dropped his stick and abandoned the game. Turning his back to Ralf and Max, he started up the road that led to his home. “Well, at least Old Shatterhand knows when he’s beaten,” Ralf called loudly, trying to goad Willie back. “Come on, Max, let’s go chase some ducks from their nests.”
Max picked up the canvas bag that he kept under the porch for deliveries and put the envelopes inside. He would have liked to stay a bit longer to wait for Lara, but if he did, it would be harder to get rid of Ralf, and he did not want to sacrifice his entire morning. “I can’t, Ralf, I have to go deliver these.” Before the other boy could protest or come up with the idea of joining him, Max ran up the same road Willie had taken.
– Thirteen –
The moment Edith arrived back home from the market, Rosie disappeared. Edith had too much to do to worry about what she was up to. Probably gone to look for that pet snail. Edith was zigzagging through the kitchen, pulling out pans and knives, when she noticed Sofia sitting on the bench, tucked into the corner, staring at the African violets on the windowsill. Her eyes were wide and distant, as if the blue petals had carried her off into some other world.
When Sofia’s trances first appeared, after the air raid, Dr. Schnall’s diagnosis was that it was a perfectly sound, even healthy, way for Sofia to dissociate herself from her fear. He called them “reveries,” as if they were lovely, dreamlike states. To Edith, they felt more like evil spells.
If only they had moved earlier, they could have spared Sofia this lingering pain. But air attacks on Berlin had been rare before that fateful night, with minimal damage, and Marina was adamant about staying—no doubt, in retrospect, because Erich was there. Edith too had been reluctant to admit that the city she grew up in, the most comfortable city in the world to her, was no longer safe.
It had been a Monday evening in November, Oskar’s sixtieth birthday. They had gone to dinner at his favorite restaurant, the Hahnen Haus, with Marina and the girls. Oskar had, as was usual on his birthday, ordered an enormous slice of Black Forest cherry torte, and they had, as usual, helped him eat all of it. Marina suggested they walk home, since Oskar and Edith’s apartment was less than thirty minutes away on foot and it would give the torte a chance to settle.
The night was cold and clear. Oskar, invigorated by two glasses of apfelschnaps, challenged Lara to a skipping contest. He was losing deliberately, careening and swaying dra
matically from curb to curb. Sofia was delighted by his antics and asked to challenge him next, but she had a small pebble in her shoe. She knelt beneath a street lamp to get it out, and Edith waited with her. The rest of the family continued on, unaware that they had stopped.
Every time Edith thought back to that night, she remembered the wailing of the air raid sirens as simultaneous with the droning of the incoming British bombers that descended upon them, though surely, in reality, the sirens must have sounded first. They always blared at least five minutes before explosions began.
And yet, as Edith remembered it, there had been no time. The first explosion, a dull thud followed by a spectacular burst of fire and flame, was close enough that the reverberation shattered all the street lamps along the street. Edith looked around for Oskar, Marina, and the other girls, but they had disappeared. She had to get herself and Sofia to safety. The apartment was too far away. Splinters of glass rained down onto the pavement, crunching beneath Edith’s feet like freshly fallen sleet. She ran with Sofia toward the train station, to the public air raid shelter there, a steel monstrosity built to keep large numbers of civilians safe.
A second bomb exploded, closer than the first. Then a third and fourth. The sirens wailed on endlessly, assailing Edith and Sofia from all sides, the cries of other pedestrians only slightly muffled by a dense cloud of searing dust and smoke. Flames shot up ahead of them, obliterating the road to the train station. Someone screamed, possibly Sofia. They would need to find an alternative. Gathering Sofia in her arms, Edith turned right onto Maximilianstrasse and ran toward the public playground where she had spent so many hours with Marina when she was young. There was, Edith remembered, a large apartment building facing that playground, and she headed toward it. She yanked open the glass doors, ran through the lobby to the oak door next to the staircase, wrenched it open, and bolted down the stone steps into the cellar.
The Good at Heart Page 10