Mercer Street (American Journey Book 2)

by John A. Heldt

  Be still, my heart.

  Amanda looked at Dot and saw her flash an I-told-you-so grin.

  "Are you working on anything interesting?" Amanda asked.

  "It depends on your definition of 'interesting.' I'm currently researching the collapse of the Weimar Republic and its impact on American investments in Europe," Kurt said. "I hope to complete my work before I leave town on Friday."

  "Where are you going?"

  "I'm going home for the holidays."

  "Where's home?" Amanda asked.

  "Washington, D.C."

  Amanda glanced at Dot again and smiled. She couldn't believe that so many good things could be crammed into one human being.

  "You are coming back, though, aren't you?" Amanda asked.

  Kurt nodded.

  "I have to be back in time to help Dr. Abercrombie prepare for the next lecture."

  "Oh," Amanda said.

  "I return to Princeton on January 9. The lecture is January 11," Kurt said. He looked at the women. "I would love to see both of you then."

  "I'm not going anywhere," Dot said with a smile.

  "Neither am I. I'll be at the lecture," Amanda said. She looked at Kurt with hopeful eyes. "I'll be there if I have to walk through three feet of snow."

  CHAPTER 28: ELIZABETH

  Monday, December 19, 1938

  Elizabeth Campbell stared out her living room window and waited for a family she feared would never come. She had maintained a constant vigil since watching a real estate agent pull a SOLD sign from a frozen lawn at nine fifteen.

  She smiled at the thought of her parents buying a house they had never seen. No one jumped into real estate blindly unless they were fools or optimists or had a trustworthy friend willing to minimize the risks inherent in property transactions.

  Fortunately for Erich, Ella, and Elizabeth Wagner, they had such a friend in Walter Bauer, a fifty-five-year-old attorney who had left Munich in 1933. Like many other citizens of the late Weimar Republic, Bauer had decided to shift his ample wealth to a country that was free of putsches, purges, and suspended elections. He had come to Princeton in 1935 and founded what had become the township's fastest-growing law firm.

  Erich Wagner had contacted Bauer, his godfather, in March 1938, shortly after Adolf Hitler had begun to unify Germany and Austria under a common flag. He had expressed his desire to immigrate to the United States, transfer his own considerable holdings to American banks, and find employment as a professor of mathematics. Thanks to Bauer, his professional colleagues, and a U.S. administration eager to relieve Europe of its brightest minds, he had been able to achieve all three goals by the end of 1938.

  Elizabeth glanced at a clock and saw it was three thirty – or about an hour before sunset. She wondered if her parents would arrive before darkness fell on the third shortest day of the year.

  Part of her hoped they would not. She was not mentally prepared to meet them or even be in their presence. She did not know what she would do when they arrived.

  Elizabeth returned her attention to the street and noticed that snow had started to fall. She had expected as much. Ella Wagner had mentioned snowfall in her written account of the day.

  Elizabeth settled into the monotony of her vigil when she heard a noise. She turned her head and saw her daughter walk into the room with a sandwich on a plate.

  "I brought you something to eat in case your stakeout runs past midnight," Susan said. She smiled. "I don't want you to waste away."

  "I can think of worse things."

  "Such as?"

  "Such as slipping on that sidewalk and breaking my hip," Elizabeth said. She laughed. "It looks like it's getting slick out there."

  Susan looked out the window.

  "It does."

  Susan walked up to her mother, who sat in a wooden chair, and handed her the plate.

  "Thank you, dear," Elizabeth said.

  "You're welcome," Susan replied. She stood next to Elizabeth and put a hand on her shoulder. "I take it that no one has even driven by slowly."

  "I would have told you if they had."

  "Are you sure they will come today?"

  Elizabeth nodded.

  "I am. Or at least I think I am. I'm not sure of anything anymore."

  "We can always visit the realtor tomorrow," Susan said. "We can say we saw him pull the sign out front and ask when our new neighbors are coming."

  Elizabeth smiled sadly, grabbed her daughter's hand, and squeezed it.

  "I don't think that will be necessary. I have faith they will come today."

  "Even if they do, I can't imagine they will spend the night," Susan said. "There is still no furniture in the house. I checked this morning."

  "There probably won't be any either until the end of the week. My mother wrote that our first night in the house was Christmas Eve," Elizabeth said. "She wanted my first Christmas in America to be spent in our new home and not in a hotel."

  Susan walked to the window and wiped the condensation from two of the panes with the side of her hand. When she was done, she stepped back and gazed at her mother.

  "Would you like me to stay?" Susan asked.

  Elizabeth nodded.

  "I would."

  "OK," Susan said. "I will."

  "Where is Amanda?" Elizabeth asked.

  "She's still out with Dot."

  "Those two are becoming as thick as thieves, aren't they?"

  "They are," Susan said with a laugh. "They certainly are."

  "That's good."

  "I think so too. I'm glad to see her make friends here."

  Concluding that she might, in fact, waste away before midnight, Elizabeth took a bite of her ham-and-cheese sandwich. She took a second and a third and then decided she needed something to wash the sandwich down. She turned to Susan.

  "Can you get me something to drink?" Elizabeth asked.

  Susan nodded.

  "I'll be right back."

  Elizabeth raised her hand as Susan turned around and walked away. She started to ask her specifically for a glass of water when she heard something she would remember for the rest of her life: the sound of a car door closing.

  Elizabeth got out of her chair and moved quickly to the window. When she peered across the street to the house that was once her home, she saw a well-dressed man of maybe thirty walk around the back of a Packard taxicab. The man opened the other rear passenger door and helped a young woman holding an infant out of the vehicle.

  Susan rushed to her mother's side and looked out the window but did not say a word. She clearly understood the importance and beauty of the moment and did not want to spoil it with questions or small talk.

  Elizabeth focused again on the man as he stuck his head through the front passenger-side window and said something to the driver. She could tell from his body language alone that he was instructing the driver to stay.

  The man stepped away from the cab, put his arm around the woman, and guided her to the front door of the house. They opened the door with a key, entered the residence, and disappeared from sight.

  Elizabeth watched with awe and wonder as the couple reappeared in the large living room window and moved slowly about the room. Even as distant shadows, the man and the woman seemed mesmerizing, haunting, and strikingly familiar.

  She sighed when the figures again vanished from sight and became anxious as five long minutes passed. She took Susan's hand and held it until the family stepped through the front door, shut it, and moved carefully down the icy walk to the waiting cab.

  Elizabeth moved closer to the window as the man helped the woman with the baby into the back of the taxi, shut their door, and walked to his side of the vehicle. She pressed her face to the glass when he lingered outside his door and looked across the street.

  The man put his hand above his eyes and, for several seconds, anyway, seemed to meet Elizabeth's gaze. He then lowered his hand, brushed a few snowflakes from the sleeves of his gray trench coat, and turned away. He opened his door,
jumped in the cab, and looked one more time at the rental house on Mercer Street as the taxi drove away.

  Elizabeth closed her eyes and smiled as the reality of the moment set in. She had seen more than three people giving their new home a quick inspection. She had seen her parents for the first time in fifty-five years and a baby she knew only from pictures.

  She didn't know where she would go from here or how long she would take to get there, but she did know one thing. Life as she knew it was about to change.

  CHAPTER 29: SUSAN

  Wednesday, December 21, 1938

  Susan walked along Nassau Street for the first time since Monday, when an afternoon flurry had made walking dangerous, and noticed that Princeton was starting to empty. She saw fewer people, fewer cars, and more shops that had either closed early or restricted their hours as the number of Christmas customers had dwindled.

  She didn't mind. She hadn't walked to this part of town to see people, cars, or shops but rather to mail a letter that required extra postage. Susan visited the Palmer Square Post Office every other week to send Professor Geoffrey Bell a reminder that his three lab rats were alive and well and enjoying the good life in 1938.

  Susan continued down Nassau Street, taking the long way home, until she reached the Dairy Diner, a tile-covered, art-deco hole-in-the-wall that was typically filled with students. She peered in the front window and noticed that the diner was filled not with students but rather a half dozen older adults who had apparently decided to enjoy one last hamburger and milkshake before switching to turkey, ham, and Christmas cuisine.

  She looked at a menu in the window, noted its contents, and debated whether she needed a burger the size of a Buick. Then she noticed a customer sitting alone at a table along a long wall and decided she needed a burger after all.

  Susan opened the bell-rigged door and stepped inside the diner. She walked past a clerk at the ordering counter and made a beeline for the table. She smiled when the customer at the table looked up and motioned for her to join him.

  Susan laughed to herself when he wiped the corners of his mouth with a napkin and hurried to his feet. She couldn't remember the last time a man had stood up for her when she had approached a table in a restaurant.

  "Are the burgers as good as they look?" Susan asked.

  "No," Jack Hicks said. "They're better."

  "I saw you as I was walking by and decided I had to at least step inside to say hello."

  "I'm glad you did. Please join me."

  "I think I will."

  Susan grabbed the only other chair at the tiny table and sat down. She knew even before she settled into her seat that she would order something decadent but decided to put off ordering anything until she had a chance to chat with one of the most interesting men she had ever met.

  "How are you?" Jack asked.

  "I'm fine, thank you," Susan said. "How about you?"

  "I'm better now that I've had lunch."

  Susan laughed.

  "I imagine this place would lift anyone's spirits."

  Jack pushed his plate away and put his napkin on the plate.

  "Where is your mother?"

  "She's back at the house," Susan said. "She didn't feel like going for a walk today."

  Susan didn't say that Elizabeth hadn't felt like going for a walk of any kind since seeing her parents and infant self on Monday afternoon. She had instead mostly kept to herself and maintained her ongoing surveillance of the house across the street.

  "That's too bad. I enjoyed visiting with her after the lecture. She's quite a remarkable woman," Jack said. "Then again, so is her daughter."

  Susan smiled.

  "You presume a lot, Admiral. I could be a very ordinary woman who has nothing better to do than visit the library and attend lectures."

  "There is nothing ordinary about a person who ventures out in pursuit of knowledge," Jack said. "There is nothing ordinary about a person who asks detailed questions about the future of the U.S. Navy. I found your inquiries quite refreshing."

  "I take it that you're not used to women asking you about the present capabilities of our standing fleets," Susan said.

  "I'm not used to men asking me that."

  "You find that frustrating, no doubt."

  "I find it very frustrating," Jack said. "Far too many citizens believe we do not need a larger navy or a navy with expensive aircraft carriers. They believe that the oceans alone protect us from the reach of potential belligerents like Germany and Japan."

  Susan smiled again.

  "That's why I found your lecture compelling. You didn't simply demonstrate why expanding the navy is a good thing. You demonstrated why it is an essential thing. I personally think you gained a lot of converts to your cause."

  "I hope you're right," Jack said. "I suspect that time is growing short for Americans to alter their thinking and recognize the threats that face us."

  Susan took a moment to study a man she had first met in the library and quickly concluded that his appeal hadn't lessened in twenty-six days. She saw deep wrinkles around his eyes and a few spots where his black hair had started to thin but nothing to suggest that he was not, in fact, a very handsome man.

  The fact he was also an admiral, an author, and a visionary with a delightful twang didn't hurt either. If her new friend had any serious flaws, then he was doing a great job of hiding them.

  "I'm surprised to see you're still around," Susan said. "It appears that just about everyone else in town has left for the holidays. Are you going anywhere for Christmas?"

  Jack took a sip of water.

  "As a matter of fact, I am. I'm catching a train for Maryland later today. I plan to spend the next several days with my nephew and his family. James is an instructor at the Naval Academy. He and his wife, Paula, live on a farm outside Annapolis."

  "Do you have any other family nearby?"

  "I don't have any other family, period," Jack said. "My parents passed away many years ago. My older brother Roger died of lung cancer last Christmas – just a month before Janet."

  "Oh, no. I'm sorry to hear that."

  Jack shrugged.

  "He'd been very ill for months. In some respects, his death was a blessing."

  "It's still hard though," Susan said. "I lost my only sibling, a brother, when I was ten. You never get over things like that."

  Jack nodded and looked at Susan sympathetically.

  "I suppose not."

  Susan pondered the comment before steering the conversation in another direction. She thought Jack seemed oddly indifferent to death and dying, but she saw nothing to gain by pointing that out. She figured that any man who had lost his only sibling and his wife in rapid succession probably understood loss as well as anyone.

  "So how is your book coming?" Susan asked.

  "It's coming," Jack said with a weak smile.

  Susan laughed.

  "That doesn't sound like you'll publish tomorrow."

  "I still think I'll have it out by the end of next year, but I'm not as optimistic as I was even a week ago."

  "Why?" Susan asked.

  "I fear I may struggle with writing for a general audience," Jack said. "I'm targeting a skeptical public this time and not a sympathetic military. To make a case for a larger, more versatile navy, I'll have to reach out to civilians in language they can understand and appreciate."

  "Perhaps I can help."

  "How?"

  "I could proof your work," Susan said. "I don't know much about the military, but I know a lot about writing for a general audience. I could provide useful input."

  "You would do that?"

  "Of course."

  "I may take you up on your offer," Jack said. "I must write a book that appeals not only to men but also to women. Wives, mothers, and sisters have as much at stake in a strong navy as their husbands, sons, and brothers."

  Susan smiled at the understatement of the century.

  "I agree."

  Jack put a hand to his chin.


  "How do you know so much about writing for the public?"

  "I did some freelance work many years ago," Susan said truthfully.

  "You did?"

  Susan nodded.

  "I wrote human interest stories for a Chicago paper. I didn't win any awards or land a full-time job, but I learned a lot about writing for a mainstream audience."

  "I'm impressed," Jack said. "It appears I've found an assistant."

  Susan laughed to herself. She had walked into the diner to find an acquaintance but had found a job instead. She suddenly had a purpose in 1938 that went beyond watching over her brooding mother and adventurous daughter.

  "So when do we start?" Susan asked. "Do you have something I can read?"

  "I do," Jack said. He laughed. "I have an introduction."

  Susan grinned.

  "Well, it's a start – literally."

  Jack smiled.

  "I suppose it is."

  "Why don't you drop it off before you leave today?" Susan asked. "I promise I'll read it over the break and give you my thoughts on it when you get back."

  "I'd like that."

  "Then consider it done. When do you get back?"

  "I plan to return to Princeton by January 11," Jack said. "I want to be back in time to see my successor in the Nassau Institute's lecture series."

  "Oh? Is someone important speaking?"

  "You might say that. The featured speaker is Heinrich Schmidt, the military attaché at the German embassy in Washington. He apparently has views on military preparedness that are much like my own."

  "I see," Susan said.

  "Are you going to the lecture?" Jack asked.

  "I wasn't planning to."

  Jack sighed and smiled softly.

  "Would you go if a washed-up admiral escorted you?"

  Susan blushed.

  "I would," Susan said. "I'd go if the washed-up admiral simply met me at the door."

  CHAPTER 30: ELIZABETH

  Sunday, December 25, 1938

  Elizabeth looked out her living room window at the house across the street and saw two signs of life. The first was smoke pouring out of the chimney. The second was a shadow moving back and forth behind an illuminated, curtained window.