Their life was simple and comfortable in Nuremberg. Janet was happy there too. And when the baby was born in March 1946, everything went smoothly. They named the baby Alexander, and Merrie forgave him his gender and announced that he was her baby too. She helped Anna take care of him whenever she wasn’t in school, and carried him around everywhere, much to the chubby little boy’s delight. He took his first steps for Merrie, and he chortled whenever he saw her walk into a room, and squealed with delight.
Robert’s parents had come to visit and see the baby as soon as he was born, and were thrilled with their new grandson. Bill accompanied his son to the courtroom for most of the week, and was deeply moved by the trials and the translation of the testimony. The horrors the witnesses spoke of were beyond imagining, and Robert would have found it overwhelming at times if he didn’t take great satisfaction in being part of the team bringing the Nazi monsters to justice, to punish them for their crimes. It was deeply rewarding, and his father could understand why he stayed there. He had been in Germany for over a year by then, and there was no way of estimating how long it would take. But Bill assured Robert that the managing partner was continuing to run the firm admirably, and the partnership was thriving.
Robert was shocked at one of his father’s suggestions. “You should let Merrie go to court with you sometime. This is an important piece of history. It would be good for her to see it.” Robert could tell that he meant it, but in his mind it was out of the question, given the testimony they were hearing, the atrocities being recounted, and the occasionally graphic film footage and photographs they were shown, which his father wasn’t aware of.
“You can’t be serious,” he said, horrified. “Dad, she speaks German. She’ll know what they’re saying.” Bill had used the tribunal’s very efficient translation system to help him understand the witnesses and had had tears in his eyes several times.
“All the better,” Bill said with a look of determination. “And of course I’m serious. The entire world should know what happened. We can’t ever let them forget it.”
“She’s ten years old.” A lot of the testimony had been medical, as the victims described the experiments that had been performed on them, and the ghoulish surgeries. They had tried twenty-three Nazi physicians.
“If we don’t want this to happen again, we have to shout it from the rooftops.” He was pleased to note that there were more than three hundred correspondents from twenty-three countries covering the war crimes trials, and more than four hundred visitors daily.
“I don’t want my ten-year-old child to know what those monsters were capable of,” Robert said quietly.
“Why not? If you want her to make a difference in the world one day, she has to know what she’s changing it from.”
“I wish you’d stop trying to use her for your crusades,” Robert said, irritated, as he spoke with feeling to his father. The trials were important, but not suitable for a child, in his opinion.
“She’ll have her own crusades one day, or at least I hope she will,” her grandfather said firmly. “The world is changing, and by the time she’s older, women should have a voice in those changes. Why not hers?”
“That’s not what Janet and I want for her,” Robert reminded him, looking worried. “We want to shield her from the cruelties of the world. She doesn’t need to ride into battle. Women don’t need the hard life you think is so worthwhile to make a contribution to the world. She should get married and have children, and run a nice home for her husband, the way her mother does for me.” He didn’t consider what he said demeaning. It sounded right to him.
“Meredith is capable of more than that,” his father said stubbornly. “Janet is like your mother. They’re natural-born homemakers, and all they want is to focus on their families, an occasional fashion show at the Junior League, and their bridge game. Is that really what you want for Meredith, Robert? She’s too bright for that. But you can at least influence her now, and open her eyes to the many things she can do in the world when she gets older.”
“That wouldn’t be a happy life for her,” Robert said sternly. “If you get her wound up about a legal career, or righting the injustices in the world, and turn her into Joan of Arc or some kind of freedom fighter, she’ll never have a husband and kids. That’s a choice some women make, but not the life her mother and I want for her. It would be a huge sacrifice for her to make, and I won’t let that happen,” he warned his father. “You’re a man, you can do anything you want. She can’t.” It was an eternal disagreement between them, and he didn’t want his father influencing his daughter and pushing her into decisions she would pay too high a price for in the end. His father thought it was worth it. Robert didn’t.
“You’re behind the times,” Bill growled at him. “The world has already changed more than you think. Women have a strong voice now and getting stronger.”
“Not as much as you think. When we go home, she’ll go to college like her mother, and get married. Don’t turn her into a freak.”
“You have a child with a bright mind and an adventuresome spirit,” Bill said. “Don’t turn her into a housewife with an ironing board in one hand and a baby on her hip. The world needs brave women, not just brave men, Robert. Look what you’re doing here, bringing war criminals to justice.” He was proud of his son for being part of history, and he wanted his granddaughter to follow in her father’s footsteps one day, despite his objections or fears for her.
“I don’t have to give up my wife and children to do what I’m engaged in,” Robert reminded him. “If you want a revolutionary in the family, wait a few years and focus on your grandson. Don’t fill Merrie’s head with your ideas.”
But he already had. Meredith had told Anna several times that she wanted to be a lawyer one day and fight for people who had been mistreated, like the Jewish people in Germany. The young German housekeeper looked embarrassed when she said it, and told her that no one had known how terribly they were treated in the camps, but when Meredith told her father, he said they had known more than they admitted, when they saw women and children and entire families cast out of their homes and dragged away or loaded into cattle cars and shipped east to the camps. Robert said that no one wanted to take responsibility for the horrors the Allies had exposed to the world, which were heartbreaking. It was why he was in Nuremberg. The atrocities couldn’t be denied anymore, and the criminals had to be brought to justice, and were now.
They spent four years in Germany, and Meredith spoke German perfectly, and loved her school and her friends and her life there. She was devastated when the war trials finally concluded and her parents told her they were moving back to New York. She looked and sounded like a German child by then. She was thirteen years old, and Alex was three and bilingual too. And even Janet had learned to speak enough German to get by in the shops and talk to people she met. Robert spoke it creditably, after hearing four years of testimony. They had condemned many of the accused criminals to prison sentences, and the judges had imposed the death penalty on a considerable number of the defendants, and they had been executed. But Robert was aware that, whatever they did to the Nazis, it would never make up for the number of people they had maimed, killed, and destroyed, the families they had wiped out, and the lives they had ruined forever. There was no way to undo the evil they had committed, or bring back the millions they had killed in the death camps. Their crimes were too hideous to believe. And Meredith had grown up hearing about them and understanding more than she probably should for a young girl her age.
It was a sad day for her when they left Fraulein Anna. Meredith wanted her to come to New York with them, but Anna was engaged to a young German by then who had lost an arm in the war, and they were getting married in a few months. His parents owned a bakery, and when the McKenzies left, she was going to work with them. Germany was slowly rebuilding, although signs of the war had remained. The country was still suffer
ing, but they were trying to recover as best they could. Bombed-out buildings had been cleared away, and the Americans were helping them to rebuild.
Their time in Germany had been more pleasant than they had expected. They had taken several short trips to Paris, vacationed in Italy, and been to London a number of times, where the British were rebuilding too. There was an aura of new life after the war, and Europe felt more like home to her than the States. Meredith did everything she could to convince her parents to stay. She didn’t want to go back to her old all-girls school in New York, with the nuns. She wanted to live in Europe, but Robert had a law firm he wanted to return to and a life to go home to, and he and Janet agreed that they wanted their children to grow up as Americans in the States. And a great honor had just been bestowed on Robert’s father. He had been appointed to the Supreme Court by President Truman and confirmed by the Senate. The whole family was thrilled. Bill had been appointed to replace a justice who had passed away a month before, after serving for nearly a decade. It was time for Robert to become active in the firm now, no matter how much Merrie had come to love living in Germany.
Anna accompanied them to the Tempelhof military airport in Berlin, and she and the children cried when they left each other. Meredith felt as though she was going to a foreign country, not her own. They had gone back to visit only once in the four years they had been away. Robert’s parents had come to see them in Nuremberg every year. Her grandfather had promised Meredith in a letter that she could visit him at the Supreme Court and attend his swearing-in, which was going to be exciting for her.
As they left Germany, Robert felt a surge of pride for what he’d accomplished at the war crimes trials. It was what he was most proud of in his life so far, and he left the country feeling he had done something to try to help Germany recover from what they had suffered at the hands of Hitler’s government. And he had been treated with gratitude and respect everywhere he went. Now he was going back to a much quieter life at the family law firm in New York, helping his clients to plan their estates and investments. But he was ready for peacetime and an ordinary existence with his wife and two children. He was looking forward to civilian life. His commission was due to end as soon as they got back to New York. The war was finally and truly over for him now, after seven years. Only Meredith was deeply distressed to be leaving, and hardly said a word on the flight home.
Adelaide was waiting for them at the apartment when they got there, faithful as ever. She had aged a little in the past four years, and was a little rounder, but she held her arms open wide to Merrie. And after feeling shy and hesitating for only a second, Merrie slipped into them as though she had never left.
“Come to Addie, baby,” she cooed to her as she hugged her, and Meredith smiled, remembering all the warm hugs she’d had from her over the years. “And look who’s all grown up.” Meredith’s body had started to change, and she’d grown taller. She’d had her dark hair cut in Germany in a stylish pageboy that made her look older. Her long legs made her seem like a young colt. “I missed you, baby,” Adelaide said to Merrie and smiled warmly. She’d made sandwiches for them, after the long flight, and a plate of cookies. Alex gobbled them up and watched her with interest, and thanked her in German.
“English, Alex,” his mother reminded him, and they all smiled. He looked confused for a minute and then said “Thank you,” and looked around for Anna, and started to cry for her when he didn’t see her. He didn’t know Adelaide as Merrie did, and had only seen her during his one visit to New York. Meredith put her little brother to bed that night and tucked him in. Her parents were talking quietly downstairs about all the things they had to do now to settle back into their New York life. Listening to them, Merrie was homesick for Germany. She missed speaking German and her friends of the past four years, their Park Avenue apartment and the city no longer felt like home to her. She was a stranger here now.
Her parents didn’t see it, but Adelaide did, and so did Meredith’s grandfather, when her grandparents came to visit the next day. She had a decidedly European style about her that made her seem more grown up and sophisticated, and she was a very pretty girl.
“Does it feel strange to be back?” her grandfather asked her directly. He hated pretense and fakery and always cut to the chase. He was observant and knew her well, although he hadn’t seen a lot of her in recent years.
“Very,” she responded honestly. “This doesn’t feel like home anymore. I miss Germany.” He nodded as though that seemed reasonable to him, while both her parents looked surprised.
“That makes sense. You’re a citizen of the world now. You’ll go back and visit. You could do a junior year abroad when you’re in college.” That seemed like a lifetime away to her. “But first, I want you to come to my swearing-in and visit me at the Supreme Court. It’s an exciting place. We make some very important decisions,” he told her and she nodded. “I’m very honored by the appointment.”
“And we’re so proud of you, Grampa,” she said, smiling at him.
“And slightly ashamed,” Robert teased his father. Robert was a staunch Republican, as was Janet, and his father was a Democrat. “You couldn’t switch parties and wait to be appointed by a Republican president, Dad? What am I going to tell my friends?”
“That they’re damn lucky to have me there, to keep people like you from dragging our country back into the Dark Ages. It’s a new world out there, Bobby, we have to move ahead with the times. Right, Merrie?” He turned to his granddaughter and she smiled. “You know why I’m there, don’t you?”
She looked puzzled for a moment. “To make decisions about how the laws should be applied?” she said hesitantly, and he nodded.
“Yes. But I’m there to fight the good fight. To defend the people who need it and protect people from being discriminated against, or being abused by bad laws. You always have to fight the good fight, Meredith. That’s what you’re going to do one day,” he said, putting an arm around her, and she smiled up at him. He was still her hero, and even more so now. Her father looked slightly exasperated. His father was always trying to turn her into a freedom fighter, even while she was still a child.
“You never change, do you, Dad?” Robert said, and his father laughed.
“On the contrary. My new job is all about change. The country is leaping forward, Robert, on every front. And we have to grow with it. I predict that we’re going to see more change in this country in the next twenty years than we’ve ever seen before. And I’m going to be part of it. It doesn’t get more exciting than that.”
At the same time, Robert was about to take a giant step backward into the safety and familiarity of his pre-war life, in his old job at the family law firm. And he was going to uphold all the same traditions, while his father changed the future of the country from his seat on the Supreme Court. Somehow, Robert had the feeling that their roles should have been reversed. His father should have been upholding tradition and honoring the past, while he explored the future with fresh eyes. But that wasn’t who they were.
“That’s what this country is all about,” Bill reminded his family. “We have to fight the good fight, to help the underprivileged, protect the rights of those who can’t, and champion the underdog.” As he said it, he looked at his granddaughter, who was nodding as she listened to him, and he knew his words hadn’t fallen on deaf ears. However much her parents wanted to hold her to tradition, Justice of the Supreme Court William McKenzie had a feeling that wasn’t going to happen. Not with this child. There was a fire growing in her that one day nothing would stop. And he had every intention of fanning the flames.
Chapter Two
Coming back to New York was lonely for Meredith, and something of a shock. She had lost touch with her old school friends after she left. Alex was too young to know the difference, and adjusted to Adelaide quickly. She lavished affection on him, and he lapped it up. Janet had gone right back to her o
ld life, with greater ease because Meredith was older and she didn’t need to spend as much time with her, and she hung out in the kitchen with Addie most of the time anyway. And Janet knew that Alex was in good hands. So she was free to play golf and tennis, and bridge with her friends two or three times a week. Although she’d been sad to leave their cozy family life in Germany, where Robert came home for lunch every day and so did the children, she was enjoying being back in New York.
And Robert was content being the senior partner of the law firm. At forty-four, he had a comfortable career and a life he loved. And it didn’t do him any harm to be the son of a Supreme Court justice. He was proud of his father, even if Bill wasn’t a Republican, predictably all his friends and partners teased him about it. He claimed that his father was the only Democrat he knew. His prestigious place at the Nuremberg war trials enhanced his career too. Robert was an extremely respected attorney, and his colleagues and clients were happy to see him back.
Shortly after their return from Germany, they all went to Washington to see Robert’s father sworn in as a Supreme Court justice. They left New York on the train, and the entire event fascinated and thrilled Meredith, who was so proud of her grandfather. Her mother and grandmother had new dresses for the occasion, and wore beautiful hats, and Meredith had a new dress too. Her grandfather had explained to her all about the Supreme Court, and had shared some of the building’s history with her, and given her a little book about it, which she had studied diligently. She informed her parents on the trip down from New York that the Supreme Court Building had taken three years to build, was completed in 1935, fourteen years before, and was designed by architects Cass Gilbert Sr., Cass Gilbert Jr., and John Rockart. But nothing she had read about it had prepared her for the beauty and grandeur of the impressive structure and surroundings the morning they arrived for her grandfather’s swearing-in.
The Good Fight Page 2