Ashes (11 page)

But at least there was no conversation about my braid-less condition. At one point I thought we were veering a bit close, so I quickly changed the subject.

“How is your job? Are you making lots of money?” I asked Ulla.

“Some,” she answered.

“Well, there are the tips,” Karl said. Ulla shot him a warning glance.

“Tips?” Papa said suspiciously. “Since when do book-keepers get tips.”

“When they find an accounting error. I prefer to call it a bonus,” Ulla said brightly.

“What was the error?” Mama asked.

“It was regarding the delivery of the cigarettes and cigars that the Chameleon sells. The vendor had been shorting us.”

“Good for you,” Papa said. “Always pays to be vigilant.”

“I should have thought to bring Professor Einstein some of the cigars. I think they are the kind he smokes, and I'm sure they would have included them in my bonus.”

“Professor Einstein is here in Caputh? Goodness!” Karl said. He was clearly impressed, none of this nonchalant “delightful” business. There were true exclamation marks in his voice.

“For now, at least,” Papa said. I was surprised by Papa's answer. Professor Einstein always spent the entire summer in Caputh. Just like we did.

“Otto, whatever do you mean that he is here ‘for now, at least'?” Mama asked. “Oh, is this the thing with Princeton?”

“What's Princeton?” I asked.

“A university in the United States,” Papa replied.

“And you said, Otto, that this Flexner fellow came all the way here to Caputh to visit Albert? He's with this Princeton school?” Mama asked.

“Yes.”

“Princeton is near New York, right?” Mama asked.

“Yes. I think it will suit him—if he goes. They have founded a new institute,” Papa said.

“What kind of institute? Like the Kaiser Wilhelm?” I asked.

“Not exactly like the Kaiser Wilhelm.”

“Do they want him to go there for good, forever?” I asked.

“I have no idea,” Papa said. He appeared uncomfortable discussing this.

“Oh, they'll probably pay a great deal to get the famous Professor Einstein, I would think,” Karl said.

“I don't think it would matter to Einstein, nor would it matter to you, Otto. You physicists are all alike.” Mama laughed as she spoke. She turned to Karl. “They are not necessarily practical. They don't concern themselves with money. Einstein will just be out there in the woods, thinking. He won't need much.”

If he went, he would be away, I thought. Far away. It sounded romantic to me. Just the word “Princeton”—like some little kingdom in the wild. I sort of wished Papa could go there, and that he would take me, too. But CalTech might be more exciting. Closer to Hollywood.

After dinner Karl, Ulla, Papa, and I played croquet—Papa and Ulla against Karl and me. Karl and I won. Then, as it became darker, Papa brought out the scope and gave Karl a tour of the heavens. After the star tour, Papa yawned and announced that he was turning in. He gave me a look that seemed to say I should go to bed too, and then suggested that Ulla and Karl might want to take a walk. The message was more than clear. I was being sent to bed so the young lovers could have a moment to themselves. So I went up to the bedroom that Ulla and I shared. Karl was to sleep in the guest bedroom. It would be nice to wake up in the morning and not see the bed all flat with its covers undisturbed, but lumpy, the summer quilt rising and falling slightly with the rhythms of Ulla's breathing.

But when I woke up once during the night, I saw that the bed was as flat as ever. I couldn't fall back to sleep, and I'm not sure how long I lay there in the dark. Finally I heard Ulla and Karl's footfalls on the steps. When Ulla came into the bedroom, I could smell something—the lake. I knew without seeing her that she was all wet.

“Ulla! You went swimming?”

“You're not asleep?”

“I was, but then I woke up a short time ago. But you went swimming, didn't you?

“Yes, it's so hot tonight.”

I turned on the reading light by my bed for a moment. Her hair was soaking, but her clothes seemed dry. “What did you wear to swim in?”

“Oh, I went in my twinset,” she said casually. A twinset was a camisole and undershorts. “I'm going into the bathroom to change right now.” She went to the closet and got her robe and pajamas. When she came back from the bathroom, she crawled into bed.

“So what do you think of Karl?” Ulla asked.

“He's nice. Very nice.”

“He's wonderful.” She sighed into the night.

“Are you in love?”

“I think so,” she said, a little chuckle in her voice.

It wasn't long before I heard her soft, even breathing. She was sound asleep, but not me. I still couldn't sleep. I had to get up to go to the bathroom. When I got there, I saw Ulla's twinset spread out on the towel rack. It had dripped and made a small puddle on the floor. My first thought was how could it be wet enough to make a puddle but not soak the blouse or skirt she had been wearing? I forgot about peeing and picked up the camisole from the rack. For some reason I held it up to my nose and gave it a good sniff. It didn't smell like lake water at all. The lake had a distinct odor, perhaps from the algae or the water lilies that clogged one end of it. As I listened to the soft
plip
of the water drops on the tile floor—
plip . . . plip . . . plip
—the truth dropped into my mind.

Tap water! She'd soaked her underwear in the sink when she realized I was still awake, and the swimming in her twinset story wouldn't work if the twinset wasn't wet.

For the rest of the night, that was all I thought about—Ulla and Karl swimming naked in the lake, their white bodies slipping through the bronze-colored water. The pale gold sunfish slipping between their legs, the tendrils of water lilies lacing through their hair, entwining their torsos.

Ulla was a living Heinrich Heine poem.

The pitifulest thing out is a mob; that's what an army is-a mob; they don't fight with courage that's born in them, but with courage that's borrowed from their mass, and from their officers. But a mob without any man at the head of it is beneath pitifulness.

-Mark Twain,
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

There was something else that was not too long to tell but too complicated, even more complicated than swimming naked together. But I didn't know how to explain it to Rosa.

The weather had been perfect and after the movie it seemed too early to go home. Karl suggested that we go to the Birkenwald, the Birch Grove. It was a beer garden. And now in the first week in July, the peak of summer season, the garden was packed with holiday merrymakers. Karl ordered a lager for himself and one for Ulla, and a lemonade for me. And then he ordered the special wurst plate that had three different kinds of sausage, including my favorite, the
Bierschinken
with chunks of ham and chestnuts. It was a perfect lazy summer afternoon. Easygoing, everyone cheerful in the beer garden as if no one had a care in the world. Karl offered me a taste of his beer, which Ulla scolded him for but in a teasing way.

“Ulla,” Karl said, “she's almost a young lady. I bet your parents give her
Glühwein
at Christmas.”

“They give me butter grog. It's even better than
Glühwein
. Not so sweet.” I thought maybe that made me seem more sophisticated.

“Of course.” Karl laughed. The dimple flashed. But his eyes never changed. “And even stronger with a shot of rum.”

At this moment I was very happy. I looked around. The people were all rosy, some a bit sunburned. Everyone was talking and laughing. A fresh breeze from the lake stirred the birches, their pale green leaves filtering the sun to cast an embroidery of golden light on the tables.

The waitress had just delivered our platter of sausage when I heard a very pure voice rising from the burble of talk and laughter. It was a singing voice as clear and liquid as the lake. A hush fell upon the crowd as the voice grew stronger, more beautiful, and sang with increasing passion.

It was coming from behind us, and everyone turned around to see who was singing. Others began to stand up and join in on the refrain.

Mama had told me that the song “The Watch on the Rhine” was an old patriotic anthem popular during the Franco-Prussian War more than sixty years ago and also during the Great War. The lyrics called for Germans to rush to defend the Rhine against France, to ensure that no enemy set foot on the shores of the river. It had become very popular again lately. The Nazis had brought it back. They sang it at their rallies, and it was on the radio frequently. In the new history textbooks we used last year there was even a piece about the composer and why he wrote it. The Nazis were not thinking of the Franco-Prussian War, but of the Great War and the Treaty of Versailles that had cheated Germans out of their land, their money, and their honor.

The young singer's voice sailed out above the noise of the crowd.

I had to scramble up onto the bench so I could see who the voice belonged to. The singer was now standing on a bench too, so he could be heard and seen above the crowd. I finally spotted him, a young man, his hair almost as blond as mine.
He could be my brother
. . . I thought,
except
. . . My eyes traveled down from his chiseled face. There was a Nazi armband on his sleeve. I looked around, and everyone was singing now. Their faces had changed, no longer reflections of blithe summer, but glazed with expressions of mindless rapture. I looked down at Karl, who had encircled Ulla's shoulders with one arm and my waist with the other. His face, too, was glazed as he sang and at last his storm-sealed eyes sparkled. And Ulla? She was not tall enough to see the singer's armband, but she tipped her head back just far enough to look up and see Karl's handsome face, and then she began to sing softly as well.

Robert Cohn was once middleweight boxing champion of Princeton. Do not think I am very much impressed by that as a boxing title, but it meant a lot to Cohn. He cared nothing for boxing, in fact he disliked it, but he learned it painfully and thoroughly to counteract the feeling of inferiority and shyness he had felt on being treated as a Jew at Princeton.

-Ernest Hemingway,
The Sun Also Rises

 

 

 

 

P
rinceton!
The word jumped up from the page. “Baba, I've heard of this place, Princeton.” I looked up from the chaise longue where I was reading. “Eh?” Baba said. She was at her desk, typing. Baba was the fastest typist ever. She could type at least one hundred words a minute, according to Mama. She could not hear me over the clack of the typewriter where she was working on the next day's column, so I repeated myself.