Out of Splinters and Ashes

by Colleen L. Donnelly

  I nodded and held my breath. It was Emerson’s fragrance I needed.

  Another door opened, this one to the left, and more officers filed in, an elderly man in civilian clothing limping between them. Grandpa leaned into his cane as if the room was tilted. I leaned with him, holding him up with every step.

  There were questions I could ask, that Miles could probably answer. His attorney posture and attentiveness told me he saw more than just my feeble grandfather limping in. A presiding officer…a military judge… entered from a solitary door and took his seat at the front, everyone standing and then sitting as he did.

  Introductory statements began immediately, and McCoy sat listening, straight and alert as his attorney filled the room with McCoy’s claims. McCoy was near Grandpa’s age, yet somehow seemed younger. He wore full military regalia, looking like he belonged, whereas Grandpa’s simple clothing made him seem like an outsider…a reject, someone who had destroyed everything military he owned. For her. Because of her. Maybe for another reason altogether.

  Miles sat at attention throughout the lengthy presentation, never frowning as if he didn’t understand the military jargon I would be jotting down and looking up later if he weren’t sitting here. I stared at my grandfather’s narrow back as I heard accusations presented as facts, woven into a story that was told as if it was nonfiction and irrefutable—Grandpa had been in Poland while McCoy tended to other of his soldiers in Belgium, who were aiding with the end of Belgium’s elections. Paper, a list, lost in Berlin, had been seen in Poland first—handwritten secret information of US military men sympathetic to Hitler’s regime. Because of Grandpa’s coloring and build, he could pass as German…Aryan…seeming a natural possessor of this paperwork as it was channeled through a network of undercover persons the short distance to Berlin. It took years for the espionage to be uncovered, German officials on trial finally confessing to being in line for this missing information, which was to come through a US soldier fitting the Aryan model to a German contact and then to them. This was McCoy’s day, his version of what happened, him taking the responsibility for errantly trusting one of his men.

  McCoy’s attorney discussed Grandpa’s injuries then, light statements that insinuated to me much was left unsaid. I stared at Grandpa’s back, imagining the scars I’d never seen. Explosion, burns—what showed at his wrists verified both. I bounced my leg, fighting the urge to jump to my feet and ask if it wasn’t enough he was wounded in duty. Maybe they could strip him to the waist and ask him to walk without his cane if they had any doubts how this man had suffered for his country.

  Miles laid a hand on my knee, stilling my leg as the attorney representing McCoy reviewed the tale they’d told, spinning it so eloquently I felt mesmerized. Everyone must have, the only sound the man’s voice, enchanting words over a soft hush. A novel Grandma would have kept for her crusade.

  McCoy and Grandpa were dismissed, each disappearing a different direction with their escorts. Grandpa never even looked my way as the room emptied, leaving me and Miles at the front and hopefully no German behind us.

  “You coming tomorrow?” Miles looked at me.

  “Of course. Maybe Emerson can come then.”

  Miles smiled and stood. I joined him when the sounds of people clearing the room were gone, followed him to the aisle, and turned toward the back. Toward Dietrich and his cohort, both still there and standing along the aisle. I looked down as we passed, a corduroyed arm reaching for me, latching onto my elbow, and bringing me to a stop.

  “See you tomorrow.” Miles glanced from Dietrich to me, then disappeared through the hearing room’s door. I didn’t want to see Miles tomorrow, and I didn’t want to see Dietrich now.

  It was Emerson who should be here, and I yanked from Dietrich’s hold. “Grandpa was never in Berlin, and making a weak link to Poland is no proof he had a thing to do with any of this.”

  “Come outside to talk.”

  “I really don’t have a thing to say to you.” I wheeled to his friend. “Or you.”

  “Just me.” Dietrich nodded his shrugging friend aside, took my elbow again, and steered me where Miles had gone. Thankfully truly gone as I scoured the hall for his smooth stride.

  “I said I don’t have anything to say to you.” It was like walking with Grandpa, two of my steps for every one of Dietrich’s. “You can slow down. I’m out of the marathon.”

  “You dropped out of the race?” Dietrich asked as he ushered me down the hall.

  “I run, not race. Well, neither now, so slow down.”

  Dietrich kept his hold on my elbow as we exited the building. At the top of the small set of concrete stairs he scanned the barren area around us and headed for the lone tree in the center of the lot.

  “Dietrich, I’m tired of asking why you’re really here.” I wrenched my elbow from his hand the moment he stopped beneath the tree. “You’re looking for a runner, you’re looking for an old friend, you quote fiction you don’t believe in, and I want you to stop dragging my grandfather and me into your schemes.” I wanted to scream. How could the man who wanted to marry me be so far away and a complete stranger standing near? In a place my grandfather was being held, pasty walls and yellowed pages, all saying he was guilty.

  “You understand what is happening here?”

  “It’s…it’s a hearing.”

  “Yes, it’s a hearing, and from what Randall”—Dietrich nodded toward his friend farther down the parking lot, leaning against a car, a cloud of cigarette smoke obscuring his head—“said, your grandfather needs some sharp defense.”

  “Why? He’s innocent.”

  “His commanding officer says he’s not.” Dietrich leaned close. “They need the missing proof, or what your grandfather’s superior claims may be the basis for their decision.”

  “Missing proof?”

  “The list of names to be handed off to the German army in Berlin. If it can be found, that would tell a lot.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Like McCoy said, Grandpa wasn’t stationed in Berlin.”

  Dietrich shoved a hand in his trousers’ pocket, working whatever he had in there. “True, he wasn’t stationed in Berlin. But…” Dietrich removed his hand from his pocket. “Never mind that. But there is someone claiming he recognizes your grandfather from back in Poland, and that he was the soldier seen handing off the list.”

  I tried not to react. “I heard the army talking to my grandpa nearly two weeks ago. It was McCoy they suspected of something, not Grandpa.”

  “The investigation has been long running and eventually trickled down to McCoy, but then to his unit. The focus is off McCoy with his charges, and the suspicions are pointing to your grandfather instead. Your grandfather’s attorney really needs that list. Really needs it…” Dietrich wanted the list, the way he leaned said he expected it from me.

  “There is no list I’ve ever heard of. How did you find all of this out?”

  Dietrich nodded toward Randall, who was lighting a new cigarette as he strolled around the car. “He’s good. Almost as good as I am.”

  “He could have told me this. Why are you here?”

  “I said he’s good. And he is because—he doesn’t care.”

  “That doesn’t tell me anything, and you said you’re better. So you care less.”

  “I care about the truth. You do too. We both need to know.”

  “Your friend is going to run out of cigarettes, and I’m going back in to talk to my grandfather.” I pivoted and started across the pavement.

  “My runner was in Hitler’s Olympics. Berlin. 1936. Right before the war. Truth.”

  I stopped. I stared across the lot at the sterile block of a building ahead. The air became impossible to breathe.

  “There was a US runner there. Unofficially.”

  There are no runners in our family. You shouldn’t run. “That has nothing to do with this missing list my grandfather needs.” I made a half turn his direction.

  “It might if it proves that run
ner was a soldier and in Berlin when he wasn’t supposed to be. Maybe for other reasons…”

  I turned fully then, my hands closing into fists. “You’re looking for a needle in a haystack. That’s an expression here that means you won’t find what you’re looking for. Not even in your fiction stories.”

  Dietrich walked my way. He took something from his pocket and pressed it into mine. “My runner left this behind.”

  He stepped back, a charred lump of wood left in my palm.

  Chapter 52

  The little runner was going to run. Dietrich watched her when he should have been with Randall, keeping an eye on what he found as Randall pried into the second part of the hearing that was coming later today. Crawley’s part—the man who was likely guilty, proven either by that list or by the mirror. He was in Berlin, and Oma might be dragged in unless Dietrich found out first.

  He’d likely be fired, no matter what, having called and declined to do the article they were holding for him. He’d never write for one of the government’s journals again anyway, once the truth came out. He didn’t know how to stop this trial, how to get back to disproving a simple book of fiction. Monika had sounded edgy when he’d called, defensive when he asked if she’d spoken with Oma. She hung up when he told her there may be a delay before he returned. There would be no stopping Randall now either. He wouldn’t fail to do his job even if the army did.

  Dietrich watched Cate walk from her apartment and glance both directions along the street. No trainer waiting, no fiancé. She bent into sloppy stretches, and began a half-hearted trot down the sidewalk. He stood in plain sight, but she hadn’t looked. He watched as the distance between the two of them grew, glad she hadn’t—yet watching in case she did.

  ****

  Dietrich lingered far from the hearing room, making several laps around the complex, giving Cate enough time to get settled without seeing him. She would have seen Randall, who wouldn’t stay out of sight for her sake. Randall had snorted at Dietrich’s suggestion and went in early. Dietrich made one last loop, then laid a hand on the hearing room’s door. Randall was where they always sat, in the back, instead of right behind Cate like Dietrich had feared the man would do after Dietrich’s request to give her space. Dietrich slid along the row without a sound and settled next to stale cigarette smoke.

  The little runner was in her same seat she’d been in yesterday, next to the same man Dietrich now knew was her fiancé’s fellow attorney and campaign manager. Miles Marcus. A man of worth personally, professionally, and financially. But not to the degree the man considered himself. Cate’s other side was empty, either seat the place her fiancé should have been. Dietrich would have been there. If he were ever to be a fiancé. Which he wouldn’t.

  “Stop strumming your fingers.” Randall jabbed him with an elbow.

  Dietrich balled his fingers. He wasn’t here for the little runner with the brown hair. He was here for white hair, white hair that used to be blond.

  Crawley briefly stood, before his attorney launched into his defense, the serviceman posture barely evident. Crawley did it well, not looking like a ploy for pity, just enough rigidity to claim he’d served his country as he should.

  The defense cast doubt on an elderly Polish man’s ability to peg the exact tall blond in the photo of Crawley’s unit after all these years. Black and white, enlarged for the judge and room to see, the picture was grainy, all the faces duplicates of each other, triplicates, a blur of expressions that looked mostly the same.

  The lawyer made much of the lack of solid evidence, pointing out that hearsay and suspicion didn’t count as tangible proof. Crawley’s attorney pressed for truth, for black-and-white facts, hammering, without hammering into the judge his responsibility to base his verdict on irrefutable information. Even from the back of the room Dietrich saw that responsibility hit home in the judge. Pride came with his duties, an honor he wouldn’t tarnish.

  Crawley’s attorney at last made mention of Crawley’s wounds. “Fool.” Dietrich shook his head. That tactic would weaken the solid points he’d made before. Nothing worse than ending on a flimsy emotional appeal. Dietrich shifted in his seat, the little runner’s head making a slight turn. She was looking at her grandfather’s back. This switch in strategy would work on her. It wouldn’t work on the men making the decisions, though.

  “In the line of duty, while serving in Poland, Crawley went to a civilian’s aid in an explosion.” The attorney moved from where he’d been standing near Crawley. Dietrich watched Cate, the man winding up his case as a peripheral figure. “Responding to a civil emergency was outside his duties there, a gasoline accident with a Polish tank truck. Crawley reacted purely from himself. Quick, and without even understanding the shouts around him. No translator, he acted from the sort of man he is. Not a traitor.”

  The little runner’s face must be a mass of confusion. Dietrich couldn’t tell from what he could see of her, her focus fixed on her grandfather’s still form.

  “Once Lieutenant McCoy was notified of Private Crawley’s injuries, he came to Poland and had Crawley treated and returned to France. From there, after further treatment, Private Crawley was back on duty, not well enough to avoid a misjudgment that broke his leg. After that, McCoy sent him home to finish out what little was left of his enlistment, well before the war began, even farther ahead of any US involvement. Private Crawley never took part in any of it, never was anywhere near or involved in Berlin.”

  The little runner moved. The cap of brown turned to the left until the edge and then the whole of her face could be seen. Her dark eyes spotted him. A warning, a mock that he could insinuate this man was anything less than what his attorney presented. The look was there, then gone. She turned back to the front, but her face, the way it looked and the look on it, stayed.

  ****

  Randall filed past lesser reporters and strode after the officers as they led McCoy and Crawley from the room. Dietrich stood. He should keep an eye on Randall, but then there was Cate. Miles rose and Cate stood with him, her fiancé’s campaign manager’s letter-perfect suit and stature whispering near her hair. There was no one for her to trust, really. Not the grandfather she used to rely on, and not the man at her side. Even less so the one who wasn’t. Dietrich was trustworthy, but who confided a broken heart to the one who helped break it? She and Miles stood with their backs to Dietrich and the crowd that was filtering out. At last Miles straightened. At Cate’s nod, he slipped to the front, the direction her grandfather had been escorted, the sentry allowing Emerson’s campaign manager through.

  There was no hero in Cate’s expression as she turned and walked Dietrich’s way. She stopped when she came alongside Dietrich. He nearly reached for her hand, when she grabbed his. She slapped something rough and hard into it, something familiar, the charred wood.

  “You’re wrong. And you’re a liar. You said romance and fiction meant nothing to you, and here you are using both so you can create a story that suits you. And them.” She jerked her head toward the front. “You’re just a cheap reporter looking for a sensational sale while you’re here, turning a good soldier into a fickle one, saying he fell in love with his country’s enemy.” She squared herself. “I can tell you, without a doubt, loving an enemy is impossible.”

  The fire in her eyes ignited a hatred of the enemy. He tossed the lily into the air, caught it in a fist, and stuffed it into his pocket. He nodded to her empty side. “Then it seems you’ve become someone’s enemy too.”

  Chapter 53

  “Your prize…” She looked at his chest, at the sudden bareness of it, even his clothing, his shirt and jacket, all lacking the distinction she’d come to admire. The glitter and sheen of his victory was faded from his eyes, furtive glances instead of joy.

  “You are my only prize.” He took her hand and pressed it to his chest. “A treasure for always.”

  She watched for the light to return to his gaze, her hand squeezed tight against his bare shirt. She stared, trying to
see any reflection of herself, of the two of them, of what she knew was deep in his heart.

  “I will protect us. I promise. In a place we can both belong.” He was uneasy as he spoke. He let go of her hand, stood, paced around where they sat in her small apartment, walked to her writing desk, and touched the stories she’d written. More stories, about them. “You are writing truth.”

  Of course he knew that. In the evenings when she and the other artists visited Hindenburghaus to entertain her country’s visitors, she read what she’d written, a dozen soft translators she trusted relaying her heart, telling him and everyone from around the world the story of a love no fiction could capture.

  “It is the same truth in your art to me.” She glanced at the mirror, at the five lilies he’d carved and attached to the frame.

  He left her desk and came to her and took her hand, bringing the two of them to that mirror to stand together, the tall and the short, the blond and the brunette, the champion and the writer—side by side.

  She stared at the two of them framed by the dark wood, the flowers he’d carved like the promises he was trying to voice. But gentler. Without angst. Not so furtive. She felt his gaze on her, and she looked at their reflections, his blue eyes piercing, his image staring back out at her. His hand gripped hers, and they looked into the mirror, her apartment disappearing behind them, their faces transported to a place she’d never seen.

  “Where are we?” she whispered.

  “I’m taking you with me,” he said. “Our home. Not what’s been yours, not what’s been mine. Soon.”

  She stared at the fast-moving background, at the almost explosive changes transforming her home to another.

  “You have to trust me,” he whispered at her side, her hand clenched in his. “Be ready.”

  I closed Amabile and stared at the cover. That couldn’t be Grandpa. That wasn’t the man I knew. And neither was the man being tried as a traitor. I stared across my living room at my bedroom door. I should run. Run to Non Bookends and look at the mirror hanging above Grandma’s books. Over her crusade, over her belief that battles did something to a man—brought out in him what was already hidden there, be it good or bad. Good or bad, I had to see for myself the mirror I’d never paid attention to until now. Far too high for Grandma to hang, far too obvious for a guilty man to hang, also.