Swept Away (5 page)

“Yes! Yes!” Heidi said, clinging to Hugo's friend. “Let's celebrate.”

Hugo picked up the check from the table and, over Ella's protestations, threw down enough Euros to cover their meal.

“I am buying you your birthday meal,” he said, happily. “Now, where to?”

Heidi jumped up and grabbed her coat.

“Erik and I are going back to my place,” she said, looking at Ella. “Pancakes another time, Ella?”

Whoa. Things were happening fast.

“How long have you known Erik?” Ella blurted the words before she knew they were forming in her head.

Both Heidi and Hugo laughed. Erik looked like he didn't understand English. A tall, lanky young man with sallow skin, he waited patiently for Heidi to extricate herself from the group. He stood apart, as if ready to drag her out of the restaurant if things took too long.

“I love Americans,” Heidi said, swooping in and giving Ella a kiss on both cheeks. “Do not worry about me, my friend,” she said. “I have known Erik long enough to know him.” She giggled at her own nonsense and then turned to stumble into Erik's waiting arms. She waved as he escorted her out. “See her safe home, Hugo!” she called before disappearing into the crowd.

Ella looked at Hugo. “That's not necessary,” she said quickly.

“Few things in life are,” he said smiling enigmatically.

The walk was slow and unhurried. When they arrived at her apartment, Ella had already decided she would allow him up for one drink as a thank-you for the escort home. She had to admit he was supremely gorgeous in that very blond
Hitlerjugend
sort of way. Like the messenger boy in
The Sound of Music
who's so cute and fresh before he goes all Nazi on poor Elsa or whatever the girl's name was. The fact was, it had been a horrible day and Ella wasn't ready to be alone. She was absolutely sure she could manage things so they didn't get out of hand. Just watching Hugo walk her to her apartment convinced her he was probably too smashed to even get it up.

Once in the apartment, she poured them both wine from a bottle she had opened the night before. He offered her a cigarette and she decided to join him on the balcony where the two of them sat smoking and drinking and talking until one glass of wine turned into three and she was looking through her cabinets to find the Wild Turkey she thought she still had. She took her shoes off and loosened her hair so it fell down around her shoulders. When they ran out of matches, they lit their cigarettes off each other's and giggled and talked about nothing until the streets outside her apartment were as quiet as death.

She noticed he hadn't mentioned the Vogel connection. Probably assumed she would just as soon forget it. He was right.

“It's getting chilly,” he said. “Shall we go in?”

“I hate to,” Ella said, feeling woozy and high but better than she'd felt in days. “But you're right.” She gathered up the bourbon bottle and the ashtray while he picked up the two drinking glasses.

As they settled on her couch in the living room, he made his move, totally surprising her. He slid next to her and grabbed her hips with his hands and pulled her to him where he planted a very wet and somewhat sloppy kiss on her laughing mouth.

“Oh, stop, you're making me dizzy,” Ella said, giggling. When she reached up to wipe some of the slobber off her mouth, the gesture so tickled her that she started laughing like she couldn't stop.

“It is very funny.” Hugo said as he watched her try to get control of her laughter. Just the way he said it set her off again.

“I'm sorry, Hugo,” she said, still laughing. “I'm not laughing
at
you, I'm just—” but she couldn't get the rest of the sentence out because she was so definitely laughing at his patient expression.

Hugo pulled back, frowning and watching her. When she finally stopped laughing, he reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked like a small block of white cheese.

“You see what I have here?” he said, holding the white block up for her to see.

She wiped her eyes and squinted at it. “Looks like…tofu?” she grinned like she was going to start laughing again but he spoke quickly.

“C-4,” he said.

She wasn't laughing now. She looked at the tofu-like block.

“C-4 as in
explosive
?” she said.

He nodded. “I am using it in my job,” he said.

Ella shook her head and tried to remember what his job was.

“My
job
,” he said, as if hurt that she didn't instantly know, as if she must have been thinking of him all these weeks as he was thinking of her.

“Your job as a…”

“I am a building demolition contractor. My firm dismantles buildings.” He waved the block in her face.

“I'm impressed,” Ella said, feeling more sober by the moment. “You bring your work home with you?”

Hugo shrugged. “It's controlled,” he said. “To be certified to handle C-4 speaks to my ability as a contractor.”

“What does it say about you that you would bring it on a date?” Ella asked.

He grinned, tossed it in the air and caught it.

“That I want to impress my date, of course,” he said. “Did it work? I have the blasting caps, too. Want to see?”

“Sure.” Ella was starting to talk to him as she would a crazy person.
Don't upset him. Don't let on he's upsetting you.

He pulled out three long metal tubes with wires attached to the ends.

“I carry them around like most men carry car keys!” He placed them on the coffee table with the C-4 and then turned to Ella. His grin was so genuine and playful that Ella's suspicions fell away. He was just a big doofus trying to impress a girl, she thought. In a really bizarre fashion. The interesting thing? It sort of worked. Ella found herself fascinated with the items on the coffee table.

Hugo scooted back over to her and slipped his arms around her to hoist her up onto his lap. She was so surprised at the move that she let him do it. He held up a finger in front of her face in a mock scold.

“No laughing,” he said, which made her smile.

When he kissed her, she turned in his arms until she was straddling him on the couch. Within seconds, his hands were under her blouse and bra and cupping her naked breasts. She gasped at how fast she had gotten to this position. What he was doing felt amazing but a creeping feeling told her that there was something not right. Then it came to her: All the night's alcohol and all the exquisite sensuous throbbing in all the right places couldn't hide the fact that he wasn't Rowan. As soon as the thought formed in her head, the wonderful feelings above and below the waist faded to nothing.

She pushed away from him and pulled his hands from her breasts. “Hugo,” she said.

“No, you are not going to stop us,” he said, nuzzling her breasts through her blouse.

“Yes, I am,” she said. “I'm sorry. I'm drunk. You're drunk…”

“Not that drunk. I can still perform if that's what you're worried about.”

“Hugo,” she said, moving off his lap. “I can't do this. I'm sorry.” She moved out of his reach and rearranged her blouse. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I'll make us some coffee.”

Hugo sat on the couch looking into space as if stunned that this is how the evening was ending up after all.

Ella went into the kitchen and plugged in her electric kettle. She dug out two mugs and a jar of instant coffee.

Where had all that about Rowan come from?
she wondered. She thought she was pretty much over him. Was she fooling herself? She couldn't imagine Rowan pushing some half naked, willing girl away. She poured boiling water into the mugs.

“Milk? Sugar?” she called. “I think I have both.” She opened the refrigerator door to grab the milk and caught the time displayed on the oven. It was three a.m. Rowan would be at the office, probably drinking coffee and planning his day—not screwing some hot Alabama babe. She put the sugar bowl, the mugs and the milk on a tray.

That would've been
last
night.

She picked up the tray and walked into the living room. She hadn't heard him leave but she wasn't surprised to see that he was gone. She set the tray down on the coffee table and ran to the bedroom to make sure. On her way back to the living room, she locked the door and looked at the two steaming mugs on the coffee table…right next to the block of C-4 and the blasting caps he'd run off and left.

E
lla knew
she should have seen the coming storm. Although she knew some things just happen, like a natural impetus independent of the actions or desires of the people involved, she also knew that she was the author of every step that had taken her to this point. She wouldn't sidestep the responsibility for that now. If she hadn't taken the Heidelberg job, if she hadn't let go of Rowan, if she hadn't been so stubborn about accepting help from her own father, then maybe,
just maybe
the rest of the dominoes wouldn't have fallen the way they did. But by the time it all came crashing down on her, it was way too late to think she could've done anything to have stopped it.

The end of all hope of happiness began for Ella as a typical Tuesday morning. She walked to work from her apartment, hitting her favorite
Konditerei
for an
espresso
and a sweet roll on the way. She would have preferred something more substantial but she was already running late. It had been two weeks since her visit to Dossenheim. With the exception of Hugo taking great strides to avoid her and being sullen and uncharacteristically curt when he couldn't, she had managed to put that day almost completely out of her mind. Glimmers of the day's revelations would come to her when she wasn't paying attention—taking a shower or waiting for the elevator. When they did, she would feel an overwhelming emotion that she couldn't name but which was nearly unbearable in its pain. It was like a weight that materialized on her chest, creating such debilitating pressure that she could scarcely breathe.

When those moments happened, she recited German verbs to distract her.

That had worked pretty well. Up to now.

As she hurried up the
Hauptstrasse
toward her office building opposite the
Hard Rock Café
, she caught her reflection in a shop window. She was pleased with what she saw: a young woman with a black peacoat and pashmina around her shoulders, her long dark hair blowing in the breeze. She looked like she belonged here. Definitely not a tourist. And then she saw him, reflected in the glass, standing across the street. He looked so much like Rowan that for a minute her heart lodged in her throat. She had whirled around expecting it to be him.

She walked the rest of the way to her office, continually looking over her shoulder as if he might appear. When she got off the elevator in her office, Heidi half stood at the front desk and gave Ella an encouraging smile and a thumbs up as she walked by. As pleasant as Heidi normally was, it seemed such an unusual thing to do—even for Heidi—that it was then that Ella realized that Hugo must have told her about her famous Nazi grandfather. As soon as she made the connection, another, fiercer, urge grabbed her—the urge to forget it, let it go, turn away from it.

As she smiled at Heidi and walked to her office, she knew that Heidi—and others in the office—were watching her.

Granddaughter of a Nazi war criminal.

Ella entered her office and closed the door, then stood with her back against it. Her heart was pounding in her chest and she felt a warm flush spread to her face.

It wasn't just her poor dead mother's shame, she realized. This was what she had been trying to avoid thinking these last two weeks. It was the reason she had failed to call or visit or even drop a postcard to that poor old woman sitting in a nursing home in Dossenheim.

It was because it was
her
shame, too.

She went and sat at her computer and tried to compose herself, breathing deeply with her eyes closed. She held her hands over her computer keyboard and willed them to stop trembling but all she could think was:
A monster's blood runs through me.

It dawned on her how she had deliberately avoided any research online that might take her close to the identity of her maternal grandfather. And she was a professional investigator. She knew it wouldn't involve much of a search. She knew she wouldn't need to drill down very deeply to see his picture, hear his voice, discover his legacy.

And she didn't dare go there. She
couldn't
go there.

She signed on to her email account and caught herself doing what she had been doing for the last month: looking to see if there was an email from Rowan. Before she even checked, the very truth of her need struck her like a sharp slap. She would always look for him and never find him. She had let him go.

She
had done that.

She turned away from the computer and buried her face in her hands, her sorrow building like a sickness spreading throughout her body. The sobs shook her body and she realized she didn't care if anyone could hear her. When she stopped, her head on her arms on her desk, she knew what she had to do.

She sat up straight at the computer, and wiped her face.

I am stronger than this
.

She opened up her browser and typed his name in the search engine window.

T
wo hours
later she had learned the truth about Rudolf Vogel. In two hours she had cried every bit of her makeup off and carefully ignored two taps on her office door and three emails from Heidi asking her if she were okay.

In two hours she learned the whole truth about where she came from and why her mother hadn't wanted to live.

As soon as she felt composed, Ella packed up her desk and folded her resignation letter into an envelope addressed to her supervisor. She timed it so that Heidi would not be at the front desk. She walked to the receptionist, handed the envelope to the young girl sitting there and left the office.

She walked the entire way back to her apartment at a quick pace. Inside, she plugged in her cellphone and turned it to mute, then went to her bedroom where she collapsed on the bed and fell into a thankfully dreamless sleep.

When she awoke it was after eight o'clock and dark out. She stripped off the work outfit that she had slept in—a silk dress over leggings—and stepped into the shower. She made the water as hot as she could stand it as if the scalding needles could eliminate the terrible images she had seen online that morning.

She had seen pictures of a handsome man in jodhpurs and riding boots, a cruel smile, an arrogant set to his chin. She had made herself look at the camp he had commanded and the bodies of the people he had murdered. She had looked closely into his face, the face of her grandfather, and could see no trace of humanity or feeling or familiarity.

He was a stereotypical cartoon. A farce. A cardboard villain.

Granddad.

She pulled on a pair of jeans and made herself a ham sandwich which she ate at the kitchen table.

She got up and poured a light beer into a glass and sat down at the table. There was no way she could stay at that office. Not with everyone knowing. It would be different in the US. Maybe. She pushed the sandwich away and pulled out her phone.

She hadn't spoken to him in over a month. She wasn't a hundred percent sure what she would say to him now. But she knew she had to talk to someone and she didn't know who else to call.

The phone rang and eventually went to voice mail.

“Hey, Rowan,” she said. “Surprise. It's me. Look, I was just wondering what you were up to. I mean, we haven't talked in awhile. When you get this message...please call me back…And if you're screening this call because you've got some Alabama hottie on tap there, that's cool. Except I thought U.S. marshals had to be available at all times. I mean what if I were a Federal witness needing a ride somewhere? Anyway…” Ella took a long breath and glanced at the photo of the two of them. He looked so capable and sure of himself she could feel her throat close up as she fought to stay in control. “Look, not to get all dramatic here or anything but I kind of need you, Rowan.” She felt tears roll down her face when she said the words and started to choke on them. She willed herself to shake it off. “Anyway. Okay, so you know this is me, Ella, right?”

She disconnected and looked at the phone in her hands.

Thanks a lot, Rowan
, she thought.
Where are you when I need you?

The phone lit up in her hand and she nearly pushed
Accept
thinking it was Rowan when she saw a photo of Heidi show up on her screen. She wasn't ready to talk to Heidi—or anybody German at the moment. She let the call go to voicemail, hoping and praying that Rowan hadn't done the very same thing to her five minutes earlier.

She thought of the voicemail she just left and wondered what Rowan would think of it. What was he supposed to even do? Stupid. She should never have called. Embarrassing, too. Because by the time she got back to the States it would all seem like a major overreaction on her part. She wasn't sure if she would ever even
see
Rowan again—what with their relationship having come to an ignoble, whimpering, long-distance end—but if she did, her face would be three shades of red in the bargain.

She stood up. Her need to move and get out of the apartment overwhelming. She needed noise and people and fresh air. She needed to get out. Plenty of time tomorrow to figure out how she was going to get back to the States. She still had a full month left on her lease—and it was paid in advance.

What a mess of everything she had made. She tugged her leather jacket on and dropped her phone into her bag, double checking that her Taser was there. When she turned to leave the apartment, her glance fell on the photo of herself and Rowan. Why did she even keep it out? To remind herself of how badly she can screw up? She vowed to pack it away first thing in the morning.

She left her apartment and disappeared into the dark, wet night. It was cold out on the street and she was glad she had the wool scarf wrapped around her throat. She walked up the side street to
Eppelheimerstrasse
. She could see people and cars moving about and felt pulled toward the activity and the noise.

Why
did
she and Rowan break up? she found herself wondering for the hundredth time.
We'd started out like Johnny and June: hotter than a pepper sprout.
Had
she
quit first? Why was that? Was she just determined to be miserable and alone?

As she walked down the street, she felt her phone vibrate in her bag. She looked at the screen with every intention of letting it go to voicemail. It was her father.

“Hey, Dad,” she said, holding the phone to her ear and continuing down the sidewalk. This section of Heidelberg was always busiest at night.

“Do you have a moment to talk, sweetheart? I hated how we left it the other day…”

“Yeah, now's good,” Ella said. “But I don't know what else there is to say. It was a big shock, to say the least but it explained a lot. Why the hell didn't you tell me?”

“God knows your mother went to extreme lengths to keep it secret,” her father said “But the war was a long time ago. I hoped you might never need to know.”

“That my grandfather was hanged as a war criminal?”

“I wanted to spare you.”

“Well, I didn't get spared today when I went to the office and everyone had clearly been given a PowerPoint on my genealogy.” Ella began to walk faster, her fist clutching her purse strap.

“People will always condescend to judge when they can,” her father said.

“This is such bullshit!” Ella said, feeling the anger and frustration pouring out of her. “I can understand how
Mom
must have felt but
I'm
an American! We liberated France, for crap's sake. We're the heroes! Why were they looking at
me
like I'm somehow responsible for…for…”

“I'm sure you imagined it, sweetheart.”

“You weren't there, Dad. They couldn't even look me in the eye. I can totally see how Mom wouldn't be able to bear living in Germany after the war.”

“She never got over it,” her father said. “Her shame touched every part of her life. Every part of my life, too, frankly.”

“Well, it
is
pretty horrible. It explains a lot about her, though.”

“Exactly. You can see how devastated she was when she found out she was pregnant with you,” her father said. “She kept going on and on about how it was the worst thing to happen to her.”

Ella stopped walking and listened to his words fall on her like rocks breaking against the pavement.

“When she was pregnant?” Ella said.

“It was everything I could do to prevent her from…you know…aborting it.”

“By
it
, you mean me.”

“Well, we didn't know it was
you
at the time, did we? At the time, it was just your mother thinking she was passing on the bad seed. I told her how unlikely that would be. And look how you turned out. But still, she never forgave me.”

“She never forgave you for allowing me to live.”

“Don't put it like that, Ella. Susie told me I shouldn't tell you but I said you'd be able to see the big picture on this.”

“She didn't want me.”

“She was
afraid
, Ella. Her whole life—her whole self-concept—was wrapped up in
him
and redeeming herself because of him. Continuing his bloodline was obviously not something she wanted to do.”

At least that explained why Ella saw so little of her mother growing up. Why she had no memory of hugs or kisses or even smiles. For a moment, Ella didn't care if she walked in front of one of the many city trams rushing by her.

“Ella? You still there? Was Susie right? Should I have kept my mouth shut? It's just that, now that you know about Vogel, I figured you'd put the rest of it together on your own. And you always were so wanted and loved.”

Just not by my mother.

“I'll be home as soon as I can get a flight out,” she said dully.

“I feel like I've upset you, Ella. That's the last thing I wanted to do.”

“Don't worry. I'm fine. I'll call you when I'm back in the States.”