It's You (20 page)

F. is to be in Berlin in two days’ time. If we are going to do something, it must be soon.

April 17, 1942

We did it. Or F. did it and I’m not sure who helped him—Herr Zorn or Captain Patzak or one of the other guards—but yesterday F. was able to get me out, using a laundry cart and then a steamer trunk. In town, one of Franz’s friends, a judge, married us in a civil ceremony. Franz had booked us a room at a small hotel for the night but we were only able to be there a few hours, but it was bliss to be alone, together, husband and wife.

Husband and wife.

Did I really write that?

And yet now, he is already gone. Off to Berlin and his appointment and we shall see what comes next.

But I know this, I won’t be leaving Germany with everyone else.

April 20, 1942

Letter from F. They want to operate immediately. It’s that or his hand will be amputated. His hand may need to be amputated anyway, possibly up to the elbow.

He will write more soon.

• • •

A
nd that’s it. That’s the last line of the last thin, tissue-like page.

Jarred back to the present, I check the old worn envelope, but there are no more pages inside. I glance at the clock. It’s almost one thirty in the morning, but I don’t feel as if I’ve been reading for hours.

Why does the diary end so abruptly?

Is there a section missing? There must be a section missing, because I need to know what happens next.

Edie

A
li returns in the morning with questions, knocking on my door before I’ve had a third cup of coffee.

I still make my coffee myself in a percolator I’ve had for over thirty years. Parts have needed to be replaced—the crystal knob in the top for example—but it still works just as well as when I bought it in 1967 and I see no reason to get one of those fancy coffee machines now.

“Where is the rest of the diary? Why does it end there? And what happened to Franz?” Alison asks, firing questions at me as she enters my apartment before I’ve even invited her in, clutching the envelope I gave her yesterday.

I close the door and head to the kitchen to refill my cup. “There were a few more pages, I’m not sure what happened to them, but when I left Bad Nauheim at the end of the month, I made arrangements for my diary to go home with one of the girls. She promised to send it to Ellie, once she arrived, since she was heading to California herself.”

“But what happened to Franz?”

I take a sip of my coffee. “He lost his hand.”

Alison’s mouth opens and closes. Her brow furrows. “I don’t understand.”

“What don’t you understand?” I’m cross. I didn’t sleep well and she might be educated, but I’m not sure how smart she is.

She sits down at my kitchen table—again, uninvited—and faces me. “America was at war with Germany. You’d been held in an internment camp, Bad Nauheim, for four months. How could you not go to Portugal, Edie? Wasn’t it mandatory?”

“Not if you revoke your American citizenship.”

The girl stares at me, judging me. That’s fine. They all judged me. They were all so angry, then. Not just the embassy staff, but their families, my friends, the journalists, even the German guards.

I married the enemy.

“It wasn’t a comfortable situation,” I say. “There was tremendous pressure for me to do what I was told. Franz was ill—his surgery didn’t go well—and I was summoned to Berlin. So before we were all put on the train to Lisbon, I went to Berlin.”

“How?”

“I showed the paper, my marriage certificate, proving that I’d secretly married Franz four weeks earlier, and as his wife, I could become a German citizen. So I demanded to be made a German citizen.”

Alison just stares at me, eyes wide.

I’m silent, too.

Even now, the audacity of it shocks me. But I was just twenty-one at the time. What did I know of the world? What did I know of politics and government? I was in love and I believed love would save us. Protect us.

She glances at the envelope in her hands. “So eventually you were allowed to remain behind?”

“The embassy staff was beside itself. At first they refused
to accept that I would give up my American citizenship for a Nazi. And then they were angry. They accused me of being a traitor. They accused me of maybe working for Germany, of being a spy. I denied it. And I understood their anger, and their confusion. Germany was at war with the US, how could I become a German?”

I fuss with a dish towel and wipe up an imaginary spot, needing a moment to gather myself.

It’s been seventy-some years and I can still see that day, still feel the terrible blistering rage and suspicion.

The Americans were livid, and I was conflicted, first “interviewed” by the Americans, and then interrogated by the Germans, and neither side trusted me.

No one in that moment wanted me.

It was up to Franz in the hospital, in Berlin, to convince his officers and the police that I would be loyal to the Party.

Yes, Franz was a registered member of the Nazi Party. But then, back then, everyone was a Nazi. It was the only party.

“But you did,” Alison says, breaking the silence, focusing the conversation. “You became German.”

I carry my coffee to the table and sit down opposite her. “I did, and I was told I’d never be welcome in the US again. I believed it. I was told I might have gained a husband, but I’d lost my friends, my family, and all respect. And I believed that, too.”

“And that didn’t worry you?”

“Of course it worried me! I remember the backlash and condemnation back in March when the reporter Robert Best left Bad Nauheim to return to Berlin. I knew people would speak of me in the same way. But I loved Franz and I wanted to stay with him. I wanted to help, although I didn’t yet know how.”

“And you couldn’t tell the Americans, or your friends, that Franz was part of the German Resistance?”

“Absolutely not. I couldn’t risk his safety, or the work he was
doing. Telling anyone would have been a death sentence for him, and everyone he was associated with.”

I reach out for the faded yellow envelope and she hands it to me. I’m glad to have the diary back. There are not many pages in the diary, and yet these few precious pages tell our story, and it’s a testament to love.

Or foolishness.

It’s hard sometimes now, as old as I am, and as cynical as I’ve become, to perceive a difference between the two.

Ali

I
’m tired,” Edie says abruptly, thin lips tightening as she lifts a hand, as if to shoo me away.

I take the hint, and stop for a coffee on my way to Bloom. I’ve a headache today from being up so late last night reading, but my day is just beginning. I don’t want to be heading to the shop, though. I’d rather be hiding out in the Napa library reading everything I can get my hands on about the German Resistance.

I know a lot about many things, but I don’t know enough about Edie’s world, or her husband. In fact, despite reading pages and pages of her diary, I still know nothing about her husband.

While waiting for my coffee, I do a quick Internet search on my phone on the German Resistance and there are pages and pages of links and websites.

I type in
Franz German Resistance
and get an entire page of names.

Franz Jacob. Wilhelm Franz Canaris. Franz Halder. Franz Dahlem. Franz Gockel.

A lot of Franzes.

Trying to narrow it down, I type in,
Franz Berlin 1944 German Resistance.

And maybe it does whittle a few down, but there are still a lot of Franzes, and they are all connected to Berlin, in 1944—Franz Jacob, Franz Rehrl, Franz Mett, Franz Kaufmann, Franz Sperr—hard to tell if any of them are Edie’s Franz.

My name is called, my coffee is ready, and yet I stand in the corner, scrolling through the various links, skimming the information, curious, troubled, fascinated.

Edie’s opened the door to a dark part of the past. It’s a messy, shameful world. It’s ugly. Brutal. And maybe that’s what has hooked me. The ugliness and the pain and the shame.

It’s how I feel. About me. About my past. About Andrew.

About failing Andrew.

Reading Edie’s diary makes me realize I’m not the only one.

I’m not the only one to struggle and love and lose.

I’m not the only one to feel such guilt . . .

And suddenly it hits me—that I want to go.

I want to go to Germany. To Berlin.

I don’t know where the thought comes from, and I don’t really understand as I have no history in Germany. I don’t even know Edie’s Germany, but I’m curious.

No, it’s more than curiosity . . . It feels more like a compulsion.

To go, to see.

I can’t imagine what I’d accomplish by going, but it’s a place that has struggled and suffered, and I want to understand the suffering so I can learn how it healed.

• • •

A
long with the usual phone and Internet orders, Bloom is doing the flowers for an engagement dinner party tonight on the Napa Valley Wine Train, and so the plan is for me to tackle the
table arrangements while Diana conducts the interviews for the floral designer position at Bloom, as the young girl from last week definitely didn’t work out.

I line up the bases for the twenty-four small centerpieces—floral wreaths of rose-hued dahlias, purple stock, and pale pink peonies with a floating calla lily in the center vase—and do one for Diana to check before she leaves. Diana studies it for a moment and then takes some greens and miniature Meyer lemons that she puts on sticks, and then tucks the greenery and lemons in the wreath, immediately adding a bright visual pop.

I ask her, “How did you know to do that?”

“It just looked too bridal or baby shower. The lemons and spiky greens give it an edge, making it more masculine which is better for a couple’s event.”

“Do we have enough lemons?”

“No, but do the arrangements without them, and I will pick some up on my way back. We can add them in at the end.”

With Diana gone the shop is quiet. I turn on the local NPR radio station for the classical music, and get to work.

As my hands gather stems and begin to shape and arrange, my thoughts drift free. I have to return to Arizona soon, and I’m going to miss Dad. He’s not the greatest conversationalist but it’s been nice having this time with him. I do feel closer to him. I feel more secure as well. Hopefully the secure feeling won’t go once I’m back in Scottsdale. I’ll be back at work in just ten days and I’m sure Dr. Morris will be relieved to have me back. He really relies on me and I can’t let him down.

But it’s hard to believe that I’ve already been in Napa three weeks. Three weeks today, actually. I can’t forget to buy my return ticket to Arizona, buy the ticket while it’s cheap.

A little voice whispers in my head,
There is time to go to Berlin, if I wanted to go
.

I smash the thought.

I’m not going to Berlin.

I need to save my money and work and focus on my commitments.

But as I start the next arrangement, I find myself thinking about Edie, Franz, and Berlin. Not just the Berlin of the war, but the Berlin before, the Berlin of music, literature, architecture, and art. Her stories have teased my imagination. I want to know what she knew. I want to see the Hotel Adlon. I want to walk beneath the lime trees on Unter den Linden, and take a car to Potsdam and tour Sanssouci and walk through the gardens and have a coffee and a slice of kuchen.

As I finish the arrangement, I take a quick break, refill my water bottle and then just out of curiosity, I pull out my laptop from my purse and go to my favorite travel website, type San Francisco to Berlin, putting in Sunday’s date, and giving the following Saturday as a return travel date. I check that I want a flight and a hotel package, as few flight connections as possible, and as good a price as I can get. And then I hit enter.

I hold my breath as the travel site sifts through the various fares and deals before starting to list my options. There are a lot of options. I narrow down the search by choosing the shortest duration of flight and scroll through the best fares.

I can get a twelve-and-a-half-hour flight to Berlin from San Francisco in economy, with a fourteen-hour return flight, one stop in each direction, for a little over twelve hundred dollars. If I purchase a hotel and air package, I get a special discount, with three nights free, and a significant savings on both air and hotel, making the package price just under fifteen hundred for both.

I could fly to Berlin and stay five nights for less than fifteen hundred dollars. It’s a lot of money when I’ve got the mortgage
payments on the house but my credit cards are pretty empty and I’ve been careful this last year. I rarely shop or spend money . . .

My fingers itch. I curl them into my palms, tempted. So very tempted.

Travel is so easy these days. All my information is stored on the travel site. I’d just have to hit enter and it’d be done.

My hands still hover above the keyboard. I want to do it. I want to go. But I don’t do things like this. Andrew was the impulsive one. Not me.

I can’t remember the last time I just did something crazy. For the hell of it. My life is planned. Organized. Directed. Those lists I make . . . those endless to-dos are my calls to action . . .

Abruptly, I close my laptop, put it back in my purse and get busy with the next arrangement.

My hands are busy but my mind isn’t free. It keeps returning to Germany, Edie’s world. It must have been terrifying and yet fascinating working at the American embassy in Berlin in December 1941. Edie was part of history in the making. She
was
history in the making.

I snip and shape and arrange even as I try to picture the American staff and journalists being put on trains and sent to the Grand Hotel in Bad Nauheim. I wish I could see the hotel. I wonder if the hotel still exists.

Finishing the arrangement I pull my computer back out, and do a quick search for the Grand but can only find historical references. I try my favorite travel site, searching Bad Nauheim and there are plenty of luxury properties, but nothing named the Grand.

I’m still debating the merits of a trip when the announcer on the NPR classical music station that Diana always streams at Bloom returns to tell us we’ve just been listening to Mozart, who is undoubtedly one of the greatest musicians to have ever lived, with Bach universally agreed to be the greatest.

He goes on to talk about his great works and masterpieces, and how Bach, who wrote in the baroque period, is as romantic as anything by Beethoven, Schumann, or Wagner.

The great German composers.

Edie’s studies at Hoch.

Her passion for music.

And then as the piece begins, Bach’s Double Violin Concerto in D minor, my eyes burn. In the violins I hear love and longing.

I hear Edie, and her love for Franz.

And suddenly I know I must go. Not for her. But for me.

I glance at my watch. It’s almost noon now. Helene could swing by my house and grab my passport on her lunch break. She has a key. She’s house sitting for me while I’m gone. That’s all that’s keeping me from actually going.

I text Helene, asking if she’s taken her lunch yet.

She answers almost immediately. No, but she’s just about to go.

I call her and explain that I need a favor. Can she please pass by my house on her lunch, get my passport from the important documents folder at the back of the bottom drawer in my bedroom desk, and send it by overnight mail to me?

“Are you going somewhere fun?” she asks.

“Berlin,” I answer.

“Berlin?”

I can practically see her wrinkle her nose in distaste. “You don’t think that sounds fun, Helene?”

“Um, no. Not unless I’m going to that big Oktoberfest thing where I’d drink beer, sing songs, and get drunk. Oh. Is that what you’re doing?”

“No. That’s in the autumn, and I think you’re thinking of Munich.”

“Right.” She pauses. “So why are you going?”

“I want to go see Edie’s Berlin.”

“Who is Edie?”

The violin concerto plays on in the background putting a lump in my throat. It takes me a second to answer. “This rather crotchety ninety-four-year-old at my dad’s retirement home.”

“I don’t get it.”

I’m glad she can’t see my face. “That’s okay. I don’t, either.”

• • •

B
y the time Diana returns at one, I’ve booked my trip, I’ve mentally organized my packing list, and my passport is with FedEx, being rushed to my attention at Bloom, no signature required, arriving by ten tomorrow morning. It only cost a small fortune to guarantee its delivery, but it’s worth it. I can’t leave the country without it.

I’m leaving the country. I’m going to Germany.
Berlin.
Until I met Edie I’d never ever given Berlin a second thought.

This is
crazy
.

But I’m excited. And a little freaked out. This spontaneous decision making is so not me.

I wonder what Dad will say. And I can’t wait to tell Edie. Not sure how she’ll react, either. After all, Berlin is her city. The diaries are her stories. The memories are of a time before I was born.

And just like that, I’m filled with misgivings. Should I not be doing this?

Is it ridiculous?

But no, can’t go there. Too late for second thoughts. It’s a non-refundable, non-transferable ticket. I’m too careful with money to waste $1,500 so I’m going.

On Sunday.

I think I’m having a nervous breakdown.

Diana and I put the miniature lemons on florist wire and we tuck the lemons into the twenty-four arrangements before loading
the flat boxes into the deliveryman’s new air-conditioned van. Thank goodness for his new van. He can finally be reliable again.

As we head back into the shop, Diana tells me about the interviews this morning. Two of the three people she interviewed were possibilities, but one was an absolute standout, and she’s already asked Carolyn to come in tomorrow to work a half day and see how she does. Carolyn has a design background but no experience as a florist, however Diana was impressed with her energy and attitude, and thinks she could be a great fit at Bloom.

“I’ll have to train her,” Diana says as she closes the door behind us. “But that’s not a big deal. I had to train you.”

“This is true.”

“So how much longer do I have you for?”

“I wanted to talk to you about that.”

“You’re not leaving soon are you?”

“Well . . .”

“Not before Saturday?”

“No. Not before the DeMoss wedding. That’s a promise.”

“Whew. Okay. So when do I lose you?”

“Sunday.”

Diana’s expression falls. “This Sunday?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow.” Her shoulders slump. “That’s terrible.”

“It’s not that terrible. I’m not that good.”

“No, you’re not. But I like you. And just having you around has been so inspirational.”

I straighten, brighten. “Has it?”

“Yeah. You’re this daily reminder to brush at least twice a day and to keep flossing my teeth.”

I laugh, hard, so hard that tears fill my eyes and Diana’s laughing, too. I give her a hug. “Thank goodness you’re a Huskie, or I wouldn’t like you at all.”

• • •

I
leave Bloom at five and am walking to my car when a black pickup truck slows next to me. I glance at the truck. A brown and white bulldog hangs out the passenger window, tongue lolling, smiling.

Bruiser.

“Hey,” I shout at Craig.

He pulls to the curb. I walk over and pet Bruiser who is absolutely thrilled to see me, although I’d be willing to bet he has no memory of me. But that’s the great thing about bulldogs. They like everybody.