Out of Splinters and Ashes

by Colleen L. Donnelly

  “Grandpa?”

  The other hand dropped, and the screen door closed, the heavy inner one shutting behind him.

  Chapter 4

  Dietrich showed the cards he’d brought to the US, his identifications as a journalist in Germany for Der Spiegel—The Mirror, oddly enough—and for Süddeutsche Zeitung that he sometimes contributed to. Then his International Driver’s License, all to gain access to archived photos in the Library of Congress, for permission to search in ways and places the general public wasn’t allowed.

  The clerk at the desk checked Dietrich’s information, then slid him a registration card, room enough for Dietrich’s basic information followed by a statement promising to treat the archives with care. He filled it out and returned it, then waited for the nod of approval. Dietrich was media; guards and monitors of any sort were seldom friendly to people like him. Dietrich felt it now as the guard perused his information—that extra disregard, the almost distaste reporters received. I’m a research journalist. And he was, but to most he was still a gossip hack.

  “Archived photographs are here…and then where is the microfilm?” Dietrich glanced at the clerk, already aware of where he needed to go. He’d studied the floor plans before coming, all international and military libraries falling into similar grids of organization, patterns complicated only by cultural and architectural flair. Dietrich smiled and made a show of his hands when the clerk glanced up. He rubbed them together, then brushed them down the front of his corduroy jacket. Cooperation. No enormous camera, no recording devices, nothing so large it exceeded the limits Prints and Photographs allowed. All he needed was time, time enough to prove there was no such man as Amabile had written about.

  The clerk nodded toward the door Dietrich had come through, where elevators could be found just outside. Dietrich preferred stairs, most often nearly empty, quiet, with only a few hushed voices, others’ footsteps, and his thoughts…about Oma and Monika today, and the fictional American runner who was wasting his time. “You’re in the right place for photos, this section of the third floor. Microfilm can be found in Jefferson, on the first floor. That’s all I need from you. Reference Desk is over there.” The clerk nodded toward the other side of the lobby and dropped Dietrich’s card into a file.

  “Thank you.” Dietrich turned and glanced around the room and rubbed his hands together again. He loved facts, thrived on details, and could spend days at this complex absorbing minutia, if he had the time. Truth made far better journalism than sensationalism or lies, which was why fiction writers and their stories could never be credited as reliable sources.

  Dietrich ran his hands down the corduroy of his jacket again. He had to give credit to the Madison building, and the Jefferson Building he’d toured earlier, sauntering amongst art and architecture, gazing through glass windows and doors. The library’s Research and Reading Rooms he’d peered into were gratifyingly enormous, immense ceremonies of book and periodical-laden shelves towering one after the other, fanned like pages along the sides. Long wooden tables filled open areas, creating kaleidoscopic symmetries of beautiful woodwork for people to hunch over while reading, their faces mirrored in the shiny surfaces. Mirrored…he turned. He was here to prove there never existed such a gift from a blond American runner. If the Prints and Photographs Reading Room didn’t have evidence of such a man, he’d give the periodical room a chance after checking through microfilm. Then he’d go home.

  Dietrich walked to the reference area, drinking in the sensation of data, information that would be difficult to argue. Truth. And here was irrefutable truth—a chamber with endless cabinets, shelf after shelf of bound photos to verify Monika’s claim—or not. He inhaled the swarm of information. Uncovering hidden gems was his greatest thrill. Standing at the main desk, he rifled through notes he’d made and brought with him, along with others he’d created in the library’s Main Reading Room.

  One face and one name he didn’t expect to find, amongst the three possible names he’d whittled Olympic participants down to while still in Germany. He rearranged his notes, slid the names into his pocket. He’d be limited how many photos he could study at one time. That’s why he’d narrowed the dozens of potential “he’s” down to three in particular who seemed to fit the physical description from what photos he found there. Today he would narrow those three down to none.

  “I’m interested in the Olympics. Looking for information on US summer teams from the 1920s to the 1950s,” Dietrich said to the young male clerk at the counter. Dietrich slid his notes from the Main Reading Room across the counter’s slick top, legwork that narrowed his search, reducing location suggestions. “That’s still several volumes, I imagine…maybe too much for one request?”

  The man was bright, too bright for this job. Dietrich caught it in the bored tap of his toes behind the counter, the “hurry” in his expression. Dietrich read this man’s impatience the same way he read what was behind anyone’s face. The man eyed Dietrich’s notes. “Special requests can be managed. Even on short notice. Let me see if I can help.” He grinned, and his fingers were quick as he punched keys and flipped through some files, his digital speed rivaled only by the pace of electronics. Dietrich admired efficiency that surpassed the machines and system as the young man determined more precise locations for the selections Dietrich wanted. “Got everything in storage decks. I’ll fill out a call slip and have them brought in.” And he did. Before Dietrich could choose a seat, a wooden cart was rolled in with books on top. “Follow me, please. I’ll show you where you can view these photos.” He stepped from behind the counter and led Dietrich to a table, parking the cart alongside it. “These have a large number of pictures for those years—many of the events, entrants, results… Were you looking for something more specific? I’ll allow more than the standard fifteen, if it’s a single subject. And I could help narrow your search to save you some time.”

  He probably could. Too narrow. Too close to the ludicrous mission of researching fiction Dietrich preferred the young man merely help with rather than understand. “No, but thank you. Just whatever you can give me of these will do, to start with.” Dietrich watched the young man bend and stoop as he gathered a few volumes holding photos, catching the man’s nametag as he straightened. “Carl. You’ve been a great help.”

  Carl grinned as he settled the books in front of the chair. “Here you go.” Carl tilted his head and ran a finger down the horizontal spines. “Beginning with the 1921 games and all the way to 1956. Special sorts of heroes, don’t you think?” He looked up, Dietrich’s smile satisfying him. “I’ll be at the counter, if you need anything else.”

  Dietrich nodded as Carl walked away. When he was alone, he sorted the volumes into three stacks, leaving 1936 by itself in the middle. If he didn’t find anything there, he’d go to the games right before and after the Berlin games in case Amabile’s heartthrob ran other years. Dietrich settled into the seat and opened 1936 and began maneuvering through its pictorial history. The photos of those particular games flashed by, evidence of the politics behind them clear, in hindsight. Fascinating material, but information he already knew better than most. And not what he was looking for. He flipped to the next section and the next, until he came upon the events—swimming, diving, hurdles, gymnastics…

  Athletics. Track. Amabile’s “he” ran in her stories—ran a race, ran to her, then ran away.

  Picture after picture went by. Dietrich scanned each one, watching for the three he’d come to the US to find. He paused at each photo of a man with blond hair and studied the build, if he’d won, and searched for the name, English names as manageable to him as German names were.

  None fit well until Graham. And then, eventually, Winston, two of the three he was considering. He checked their physical descriptions and then their names against the medalists in another section. All of the US medalists, not just the ones in track, on the off chance Amabile’s fiction was just that. Both were medalists, both in track, and both rather tall with fair
ly light hair, but slightly wavy. US records agreed with what he’d found in Germany, but like he’d hoped, with more pictures and better, of the American teams in particular.

  At the end of the book he found group photos. He’d pored through enough in Germany he practically had them memorized. He counted the heads of the group after they’d reached Berlin, the 344 athletes that rode over on the SS Manhattan. He counted the heads in the team for athletics alone, those who’d won and those who hadn’t as the games came to a close. He compared the faces in athletics to the ones fresh off the ship in Berlin. He’d done it before in Germany, but he did it here again, especially in photos Germany hadn’t had.

  Counted and compared, everything the same…until one. One wasn’t right. Dietrich knew Carlson had been in the first pictures, but he shouldn’t be in the last. He had run the quarterfinals, then was hospitalized with food poisoning, the only athlete who had come down with it, creating a stir of alarm followed by hurried relief. Therefore, every picture of the team at the end should be one runner short from what they had at the beginning. And most pictures were, except for one.

  One had the same number of competitors at the end as there were at the beginning. Dietrich went back through every face in the picture, comparing each one to the other photos until he found him. A very tall man with hair that looked almost white in the photo, thin build with a medal hanging around his neck. Dietrich sat back in his seat. The man fit Amabile’s description. But ringers who hadn’t been through the trials couldn’t just drop into the games. He bent forward again, walked his fingers meticulously over every photo in the 1936 book, then set that one aside. He next looked at the years before and the years after. The mystery man wasn’t in any of them. Only that one picture, and it looked like an amateur shot.

  He matched the names below one of the professional photos to each face, spotting the three he’d originally considered, writing every one down as he went. Some of these men would still be alive. He checked the ones who stood nearest the mystery man and starred their names. Someone would know him. Too bad the photo he was in didn’t list the names. It would take a lot less time to explain him away if he had a name. Dietrich stood and summoned the clerk to return the stack.

  “That was fast.” Carl smiled. “I admire fast. Find what you wanted, or do you need something else?” He tapped his fingers on the table next to Dietrich’s books, four tiny race horses ready to take off.

  “Those were helpful.” Dietrich eyed Carl’s fingers, hands Dietrich could put to use. The tapping slowed with Carl’s disappointment. “You’re quite adept at the filing system. Quicker than most.”

  “I like order.” Carl nodded his head. “This system is good, and I’ve worked with it enough I’ve mastered it. But if they’d let me, I’d write a whole new system that works even better.”

  “Really? Better than this?”

  “Much better.” Carl leaned against the table’s edge. “Try me. I can get you anything with my method, anywhere in the library, even faster than I did before.”

  “All right.” Dietrich stroked his chin, the scrape of fingers against stubble priming Carl to dive into what Dietrich needed to know. “I won’t make it too hard on you, but I’ll give you two at once to see how well your system does.”

  “It will be a cinch.” Carl straightened and rubbed his hands together. “Give them to me.”

  “Okay, find me the names of the US Olympic participants in 1936 who rode the SS Manhattan from here to Europe and then back again. That’s not too tough. And for the second search, let’s do something totally different. How about well-known wood workers in the US in 1950?”

  “On my mark, get set, go!” Carl’s face transformed from a grin to a machine.

  Dietrich watched Carl scoop the books up, set them on the cart, and hurry them to the counter, his hands thrumming as he took his seat at the filing system. The race was on, Carl’s fingers competing with the speed of his mind. If anyone could help narrow Dietrich’s search to one American in Berlin, one unexpected Olympic medalist in those games, and one wood carver in Amabile’s fiction, it was Carl.

  A pad of paper slid across the counter and stopped in front of Dietrich, file numbers and locations scrawled on the top sheet. Carl swiped his forehead with his arm.

  “Impressive.” Dietrich tapped the pad. “Patent your idea. Soon.”

  “Yes, sir, I will.” Carl’s mouth kicked up on one side as he snatched the pad back and tore off the top sheet. He slapped his hand over a pencil. “Right now, in fact.”

  “Good.” Dietrich turned away, then looked back. “Mind giving me that sheet you tore off? I want to check you.”

  “You bet.” Carl handed the sheet to Dietrich.

  “And who do I see about copies of a couple of these photos?” Dietrich folded the paper and slid it into his pocket.

  “Let me guess—of the team on the SS Manhattan?” Carl’s eyes sparkled.

  “Very good. You’re right.” Dietrich smiled. “Leaving New York, and returning. And a few of the other smaller photos also. You had some I’m lacking in my collection.”

  “I can take care of all of those for you. Just show me which ones, and we should have them by tomorrow.”

  Dietrich made sure the one photo he wanted was almost invisibly chosen as he pointed it out to Carl along with ones he didn’t particularly care about. Carl would be useful if Dietrich needed anything else. He would remember today as the day he set out to improve the Library of Congress’s system, and Dietrich as his inspiration.

  “I’ll be back.” Dietrich nodded. He smoothed his hands down the front of his jacket as he watched Carl and his pictures go. “Okay, Amabile,” he whispered in German as Carl disappeared. “As far as I’m concerned, fiction has as much credence as romance. Let’s keep it that way.”

  Chapter 5

  Sweaty and unattractive, my reflection trotted across the glass of Non Bookends’ front window as I trotted along the sidewalk to the door. Reflections should lie. I stared at soggy brown strands too heavy for their normal wave, tucked behind my ears, my soaked running clothes clinging to my body. It was my own fault. I couldn’t help but take a jubilation run after leaving Grandpa’s house before coming here.

  The bells above Non Bookends’ front door jangled as I opened it to faces I recognized and others that I didn’t. Fingertips of all ages and sizes halted over yellowed pages and dusty spines as they eyed the wet me. Grandma’s flock. I nodded at the faces that had been growing old as I’d been growing up, faithful patrons living Grandma’s claim that Non Bookends was the place where life that had only been imagined could finally be realized. They could continue to believe her adage as long as they wanted. In a few moments Grandma no longer would.

  I wended along the path I’d exited earlier, breathing in air normally congested with tiny print and author wisdom, it feeling clear, light, and refreshing for a change. I darted between shelves and around customers swallowed by cozy chairs and sofas with books poking up from their laps. Grandma’s seemingly haphazard arrangement of shelves was an obstacle course that had entertained me for hours as a child, but I understood now they weren’t arbitrarily situated at all. There was nothing sporadic about this layout. There was purpose in the placement of each group of shelving, meaning in the quotes she’d attached to their sides, and specific themes boxed within these clusters of small sofas, chairs, and tables with lamps. Grandpa’s war was in this arrangement, according to Grandma. Truth in fiction. She was going to be shocked to learn there was no war for Grandpa and the truth was in him, not in her stories after all.

  I grazed my leg as I rounded a sofa and apologized to the jarred woman looking up. I waved as I rushed on, hurrying past a tower of shelved books as I searched for Grandma. Grandpa inspired me, not the stretch of his legs and the way they could eat up twice the sidewalk in one step that mine could, but the pace of a man who claimed he was always on trial and who very soon wouldn’t be.

  “Grandma,” I whispered around a bloc
k of shelves. She was here somewhere. This store was a map instead of a maze, islands of supposed truths all neatly hemmed by a border along the ceiling, every wall topped with a row of framed somethings—pictures, photos, or mirrors so high each one’s glass was a reflection instead of a scene.

  Grandma refused to lower them, even when I offered to replace whichever ones needed it with photos I’d taken—Grandpa’s limp from behind, her hair as she bent over a book, and her customers’ fingers charting courses along her books’ spines. Her glinting border remained untouched and where it was…too far up to see, a rim of reflection capping her flock’s reflections below it. And her…somewhere.

  I reached the back, the smell of old prose catching up with me as I glanced from side to side. Faded oils, dried wood, and the waft of warm lamp bulbs overpowered the drench of my skin and wet clothes. I looked back at the labyrinth she was hiding in.

  “Grandma!” I whisper-hissed. Not the “store voice” Grandma had taught me to use the first time I came to Non Bookends to “help” as a girl. I headed back toward the front. Slower, taking wider swaths, pausing at the center and listening near a singular tier of wooden shelves, the hub—the king—of Grandma’s literary marvels: Henrik Ibsen, his plays, and his life. Grandma said he wrote strong women, even when they were weak. Strong women like Grandma, crusading through a war that was about to end. I glanced at the volume Grandma cited from most often, raised a finger, and tapped the binding that housed Nora, Henrik’s most famous heroine, the one who dared to leave her husband, Torvald. Grandma said he deserved to be left, caring for Nora by building his castle around her, adding a moat of provision and protection to keep harm out. But it kept her in. Until she exploded through his walls, leaving him and his moat behind.

  “Here.” A towel appeared between me and Nora. “You’re raising the humidity around my books.” Grandma swiped my sweaty finger from the gold of Ibsen’s name.