Forever Fleeting

by Bret Kissinger

  “Do you think Erich is acting weird?” Lena asked.

  “Isn’t he always?” Hannah said.

  “More so,” Lena maintained.

  Hannah, Lena, and Helga were cutting watermelon, cantaloupe, and pineapple in the kitchen as the three men were avoiding being caught on fire while cooking bratwursts and frikadelle (hamburgers) over a charcoal grill outside.

  “Who gets hurt first?” Helga asked, laughing.

  It would be Helga that got hurt first. Hannah and Lena both knew from each other’s smirk they had had the same thought and suppressed the urge to break out in laughter.

  They made a spread worthy of the Hauser house—bratwurst, hamburgers, potato salad, coleslaw, and cut-fruit salad with an artistic touch by using the watermelon rind as a fruit bowl. With so much food, the plates barely fit on the table. The wine was perfect for such a summer day with a subtle taste of citrus, and Jakob and Ida Hauser’s streak of great selections continued.

  After lunch and after clearing the table, they played a few hands of cards to let their food settle before swimming for most of that afternoon. At around six, Erich asked Lena to join him on the paddle boat. Heinrich, Wilhelm, and Hannah tried to be inconspicuous with the glances they exchanged. They played four-handed cribbage, but only Helga was vested in winning. After the dozenth glance at the lake, Helga asked what was wrong. Heinrich explained. Helga understood but felt out of place. Her face reddened, and the redness did not go away for the rest of the game.

  The sunset sparkled off the calm water, and the four had finished playing their third game of cribbage when Lena and Erich paddled to shore. Hannah raised her camera and snapped a photo of Lena gleaming with a smile on her face and a diamond on her finger. Cheers and whistles came from the shore, and after Lena and Erich docked, both were bombarded with hugs. Lena had stocked enough wine for several weeks, but most of it was used up that night as they sat beside a peaceful campfire.

  Erich and Lena went inside first, no doubt to celebrate their engagement. Heinrich and Helga were next, arguing the entire way to the house. Helga could not shake off the awkward feeling of being invited to something so personal. Wilhelm and Hannah had been alone countless times yet, now, they were joined by awkwardness. Wilhelm poked at the fire with a stick, his mind wandering. He was happy for Erich, truly, but he could not deny his jealousy. But what Erich had done was within the law. Both he and Lena were of strong German stock. But Hannah was Jewish, and in the eyes of the Reich, she was a half-breed.

  After the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 were put into effect, “mixed” marriage was declared an offense punishable by imprisonment and even death. The Mischling (mixed-blood) Test determined whether or not a person had to identify themselves as a Jew. A person with three or four Jewish grandparents was considered a Jew. A person with exactly two Jewish grandparents is to be either a Jew or a Mischling of the first degree. A person with only one Jewish grandparent was considered to be a Mischling of the second degree.

  Hannah’s mother was not born Jewish but was a convert. But because Hannah had two Jewish grandparents, she had to face another series of tests, which she failed. She had taken part in the religious community after the laws had been put into effect, classifying her a Jew. A Mischling of the first degree was just a smaller step down from being classified as a full Jew anyway. But if Wilhelm married Hannah, he too would be classified as a Jew.

  “Hannah, you know I want to,” Wilhelm began.

  He wanted to say more, but Hannah stopped him.

  “I understand,” she said.

  Wilhelm wanted nothing more than to be her husband.

  “Wilhelm, I know you love me. You know I love you. We just can’t,” Hannah said.

  She walked around the fire and sat beside him and took his hands in hers. But the answer did not satisfy his discontent. “Walk with me,” she said.

  Together, they strolled to the lake. Hannah had told Wilhelm much of what she had sacrificed for being a Jew. But she never complained though Wilhelm would have preferred it. To listen to her accept as a truth the way things were was more gut-wrenching than her venting.

  She could not go to university and pursue a career as a nurse. She had wanted to be one at a young age, but the dream had been taken away while she was still a child. No doubt she wanted to follow in her mother’s footsteps before the law prohibited Emma’s right to practice. She was able to only treat other Jews until that too was taken away. She traded her stitching of flesh with cloth but still helped those at the synagogue with cuts, scrapes, and minor injuries, as there was a strong likelihood they would not be treated by the city’s clinics and hospitals.

  “Will you be distant the whole night?” Hannah asked.

  “I want that so badly,” Wilhelm said.

  “Tonight is Lena and Erich’s night. Let’s not make it about us,” Hannah said.

  She took his hand and wrapped it around her waist. They took a waltzing position.

  “Dance with me?” she asked.

  “Always,” he answered.

  The moon was barely visible but for the faintest curve, and it reflected off the tranquil water with only a slight ripple that came when something under the water moved. Crickets sang their loneliness for all to hear.

  “Let me take you somewhere safe,” Wilhelm said.

  “Plan on taking me to the moon?” Hannah asked.

  The whole of Europe held its breath. The exhale was coming. Though it was hard to get the truth from the Nazi-controlled newspapers, Lena often let little things slip. Germany had done much to garner the attention of France and the United Kingdom. In March, they had annexed Czechoslovakia. The British and French had drawn a line, and Hitler had stepped over it and continued to creep forward to see how far they would let him.

  “France. England. The United States,” Wilhelm said, rambling off names of nearly two dozen countries.

  Hannah shook her head. “Wilhelm, they will not let me leave the country. My passport is marked Sara. Jews only leave when told,” she reasoned.

  Anyone who had to classify themselves as Jewish had their passport marked with the name Israel, if male, and Sara, if female. Remarkably, it was safer being in Berlin—better to be under the hawk’s nose than in front of its eyes.

  Hannah pushed the paddle boat into the water, and the two hopped on before it drifted off.

  “Now we are somewhere else,” Hannah said.

  They laid down, using the life jackets as pillows, and gazed at the stars. But the feeling of disappointment and let down did not fade easily for Wilhelm. Over the next several days, he found it hard to be around Erich and Lena and all their wedding excitement and bliss. But guilt swept in. Lena and Erich had been nothing short of great friends. Hannah took it better than Wilhelm, in public at least, but he knew the laws had beaten her morale to a pulp.

  After returning home from a long day at the dealership, Josef and Emma invited Wilhelm over for dinner. Wilhelm wanted nothing but a shower and a relaxing night on his couch with Hannah. But he did not want to refuse, and he knew he would enjoy both the food and the company.

  The stairs leading up to Hannah’s home usually alerted her parents of her arrival with a groan or a creak but the shouting coming from upstairs drowned them out. If someone would have entered the Schreiber home, the shouting was to be expected. If there was no shouting, something was terribly wrong. But Hannah had only heard her parents argue on less than a handful of occasions. Something was terribly wrong.

  “What is going on?” she asked, reaching the top of the steps.

  Josef and Emma fell silent and hoped they could get away with it.

  “I heard you arguing,” Hannah said.

  “Tell her, Josef,” Emma said.

  Josef paused with a sigh and then said, “The Portnoes were taken.”

  “Who are the Portnoes?” Wilhelm asked.

  “A family from our synagogue,” Emma answered.

  “What do you mean ‘taken’?” Hannah asked.

/>   “They were taken from their home and forced to board a train,” Josef explained.

  “A train? To where?” Hannah asked, her voice shrill.

  Flashes of her and her parents ripped from their beds and forced onto a train filled her head.

  “I do not know,” Josef said.

  “It’s not just here, Hannah,” Emma added. She said she had telephoned Josef’s cousin, Abel, in Poland and he too said the Jews were being rounded up. The hawk the Goldschmidts and the other Jews of Germany had been hiding under had looked down to see them in its nest.

  “We should have left when we had the chance,” Hannah said.

  The words broke Josef’s heart. Aaron and Shoshana Kowalski were his and Emma’s best friends for years. The four would meet for dinner every Friday night and play cards at either their own home or the Kowalski’s. After Hitler was named chancellor in January of 1933, they had emigrated from Germany to England. They had told Josef and Emma they should consider the same. Though Josef knew Hitler to be an anti-Semite, he could not imagine the series of events that would unfold to allow Hitler to act on it. But now, it was too late.

  “I am so sorry,” Josef said.

  Hannah rushed forward to hug her parents. Her pulse raced, and the strength in her body abandoned her. She desperately hoped she was in a nightmare—one she would wake up from immediately. It would only be a matter of time before they came for them—only a matter of time before they forced them to board a train to an unknown destination.

  The useless feeling in Wilhelm had mutated exponentially.

  “I fear by being your father, I have sentenced you to an awful fate,” Josef said.

  Though he fully believed in Judaism with all his soul and heart, he found himself wishing he had never practiced it. Had Emma divorced him prior to the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, the Mischling Test would have classified both her and Hannah as Mischling of the first degree.

  To Wilhelm, it was watching the fever take over his mother, flushing the color from her skin and the warmth from it. But unlike then, there was something he could do.

  “Let me be her husband,” Wilhelm said.

  The sobbing from Emma and Hannah along with Josef’s pleads for forgiveness had drowned out Wilhelm’s words. None turned to look at him.

  “Let me be her husband,” Wilhelm said louder.

  They did not pull away from their embrace, and their three heads looking at him appeared to come from one body.

  “I am German. I have no Jewish grandparents. Let me marry her and give her my name. She will no longer be Hannah Goldschmidt. She will be Hannah Schreiber,” Wilhelm said.

  “You will be classified a Jew,” Emma warned.

  “Hannah does not look Jewish. I mean, what they think Jews look like,” Wilhelm said.

  There was no apology needed, for they had all seen the propaganda that had been placed on every street corner for the last five years. Hannah appeared to be a beautiful Aryan, the caliber of which Hitler wanted to populate the world.

  “You would do this for her?” Josef asked.

  “I love her. I want to marry her. This gives me an excuse that you cannot refuse,” Wilhelm replied, smiling both with excitement and nervousness—something he did not know whether it was appropriate or not.

  “There are laws though, Wilhelm. No one will marry you,” Josef said.

  “I do know of a Roman Catholic priest who is marrying couples in secret,” Emma said.

  She had several friends who had wed their Jewish daughters to non-Jewish men.

  “I need to ask Hannah,” Wilhelm said.

  There were so many places he had thought of proposing and in so many different ways. He was the one who had given Erich the idea of proposing on the lake. Though he had considered it for himself, the cabin belonged to Lena, and the moment belonged to her. But of all the ideas as to how and where, none involved her parents standing by her or Hannah in tears. It appeared to be an almost forced marriage. He certainly wanted Josef and Emma’s blessing, but he did not want them to command her to say yes.

  “I need to get a ring,” Wilhelm said.

  And of all the scenarios he had mapped out in his mind’s eye, each one involved placing a ring on Hannah’s finger.

  “May I have a word with you, Wilhelm?” Josef asked.

  Wilhelm nodded and followed Josef into his bedroom. He had never been allowed to enter his father’s bedroom and standing in Hannah’s father’s room once again brought to light the drastically different childhoods he and Hannah had had. Josef dug deep into the top drawer of the dresser in front of the bed. The inside of it was cluttered with letters, photos, and old tickets, ranging from bus and train to theatre and opera.

  “I keep almost everything,” Josef said as he sorted through the drawer. “I think Emma secretly discards old things, but I am sentimental about keeping things that bring back memories—the train ticket I took to Paris to meet Emma while she was studying there, photographs of my mother and father, my brothers, Asher and Azriel, twins, my sisters, Eliana, Maya, and Liora. A ticket to a truly awful musical. Come to think of it, this is something I should toss.”

  Wilhelm had never been envious of a dresser drawer until that moment. It was not junk in the drawer—it was proof of life. A person must be so fortunate to have so many memories. Fifty years from then, Wilhelm hoped his drawer to be as full.

  “Here we go,” Josef said, sighing with satisfaction as he pulled a ring box from its depths.

  He opened the old, silver, felt box and a blue sapphire amongst a band of white diamonds sparkled with the same vibrancy as the day it had been crafted. Its tenure in the cramped drawer amongst ageless treasures had only increased its antique appeal.

  “This ring has been in my family’s possession dating back to my great-great-grandfather. He crafted it himself. It was given to his wife and passed to their eldest son and down the line. Though Emma and I have tried, a son never came to us that way. But God has given us you. I give you the ring, Wilhelm,” Josef said and held out the box for Wilhelm to take.

  It was far more expensive than anything Wilhelm could have afforded. Yet, it was not the monetary amount attached to the ring that made it special. It was a ring with history—much like what Hannah had said about all that trees had witnessed. The ring had been on the finger of her family for generations.

  Wilhelm thanked him. His voice was scratchy and gave out. Unlike with his father, he had expected to be overcome with emotion. The generosity of the Goldschmidts knew no limits, nor would they ever know how much it meant to him.

  Wilhelm was transfixed by the ring and who had worn it. It was a ring that had traveled hundreds of miles, seen thousands of people and entire lifetimes. He wondered why Josef had kept it hidden amongst what looked like junk to the untrained eye. But the junk was equally as important to Josef as the ring—much like the medals Wilhelm’s own father had kept hidden away. They were memories his father wanted to forget, yet he never could. But it also was not safe for such a ring not to be hidden. The shop had been vandalized and broken into once. The city was on full alert, and the Gestapo was far more formidable than farmers with pitchforks.

  “Mr. Goldschmidt, may I ask Hannah’s hand in marriage?” Wilhelm asked.

  He would do it in the traditional and proper way.

  Josef put his hands on Wilhelm’s shoulders. “You are a good man, Wilhelm, and I must say you wear fine suit coats.”

  Wilhelm could have asked Josef about every trinket, photograph, and ticket in the drawer, and he would have answered patiently and honestly. But the questions were for Hannah to ask. He could only hope she recognized what a gift she had waiting to be unwrapped. Josef patted his back as they stepped out of the room.

  “Will you walk with me?” Wilhelm asked, approaching Hannah.

  Hannah nodded, and her parents smiled as she and Wilhelm walked down the stairs. Something had changed in Wilhelm though. He did not feel excited about asking her hand in marriage. It seemed like a ch
ore she was being forced to do. There was no excitement. The anticipation and surprise had vanished.

  Hannah and Wilhelm walked longer than either had expected to. Wilhelm subconsciously led them to the Tiergarten. The trees were full of leaves and life. They paused on the bridge, where four lion statues, two on each end, rested on each side, carrying the decorative bridge cables in their mouths. The water looked to be the same color as the sky—a perfect watercolor blend of orange and purple sunset.

  Wilhelm paused and looked down at the water. The lion statues glared at him, and even if they were fake, they looked capable of pouncing. Realizing if he delayed it any longer would make it look like he did not want to marry her at all, he turned to Hannah and drew the ring box.

  “This ring has been in your family for generations, Hannah,” Wilhelm said.

  Hannah reached out and took the ring box from his hand.

  “I do not want you to think I am only accepting because of what my parents want, Wilhelm,” she said, falling to one knee. “Wilhelm Schreiber, will you marry me?”

  Wilhelm got down on his knees and took her left hand in his right. He pulled the ring from the box and slid it onto her left ring finger.

  “Will you let me be your man?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Hannah answered, rubbing the side of his face.

  He pressed his lips against hers with enough force to nearly knock them over.

  “I only have one condition. We wait until my father can come.”

  Secret Wedding

  Wilhelm stared at his black telephone for ten minutes, contemplating what he would tell his father. A verbal bashing over the phone was preferred, but he elected to simply ask his father to come to Berlin. It was a gamble, as anything short of Wilhelm’s life being on the line was bound to fail.

  On 30 June, Wilhelm and Hannah waited at the bus station for Wilhelm’s father to arrive. Each bus that came toward them made Wilhelm’s stomach summersault. But Petyr Schreiber was not to be found among the scurrying passengers as each bus emptied. Wilhelm assured Hannah they were wasting their time, but Hannah’s only response was “one more.” But the final tally of “one more” was six when Petyr Schreiber finally stepped off a bus. He carried only a small suitcase and wore a suit and hat. He had aged since Wilhelm saw him last—almost a year and a half ago.