Safe Haven (32 page)

But in spite of everything, Ilse was no closer to finding Marta and the children than she had been the day she began the search in earnest. Suzanne was losing hope, and she could not imagine what Ilse must be feeling. It amazed her to see how the older woman remained steadfast for Liesl’s sake.

“How do you do it day in and day out?” she asked one afternoon when she and Ilse sat across from each other at the coffee shop.

“My faith is strong,” Ilse said. “I accept that there is a plan in all of this.” She took a sip of her coffee. “Liesl told me that you are also of the Friends’ faith.”

“It was how I was brought up,” Suzanne admitted.

“But you have moved away from those teachings?”

Suzanne eyed Ilse with suspicion, her senses on alert as always for possible betrayal. “Has Theo told you—”

Isle placed her hand on Suzanne’s. “My nephew and I do not discuss you.” She patted her arm and then cut a bite of her cherry pie. Just before inserting the fork into her mouth, she added, “But since you have raised the subject, how do you see the future for you and Theo?”

Suzanne looked up. Ilse was smiling. “You mean together?”

“Well, of course. He is quite fond of you, and I believe you return those feelings, although it does seem to me that you struggle with that.”

“I … we … perhaps if Theo wins election to Congress and comes to Washington …”

“Oh, Suzanne, dear child, you cannot build a future on perhaps.”

Suzanne leaned back against the red vinyl cushioning of the booth they shared. “He has a career—perhaps in politics or perhaps in farming. I also have a career.”

“And you would not forgo that career for love?”

Put that way, Suzanne was left speechless. Of course she had once dreamed of finding true love, of marrying and having a family, but ever since that summer when Natalie had killed herself, Suzanne had weighed everything in terms of certainty. Only once had she allowed herself to throw that caution to the wind. That had been when she had allowed herself to believe that Gordon Langford loved her—truly loved her.

“You know,” Ilse said, “there was a time when I was overly cautious. I was afraid of everything and everyone. Theo’s sister, Beth, terrified me. She seemed so reckless and idealistic. Her certainty about what was the right thing to do was overwhelming for me, yet now I see that her faith was so strong.”

“Ilse, I have my reasons for moving away from my faith.”

“But you must believe in something.”

Unnerved by Ilse’s probing, Suzanne searched for some way she might change the direction of their conversation without being rude. “I believe that I could use a refill on this coffee,” she said and turned to get the attention of the waitress. After the waitress had come and gone, the two women finished eating their pie in silence. As they sipped their coffee, they took turns looking out the window at the steady rain.

“I thought it was April showers that brought the May flowers, and yet the rain has come in May and there are no flowers,” Suzanne mused, hoping to relieve the tension between them.

Ilse glanced at the clock over the exit. “I should go. Liesl will be home from school soon, and I promised to help her with her piano practice. Ivo has asked her to play a piece at the variety show he’s putting together.” She slid her arms into her coat sleeves and then tied a scarf around her hair. She stood up and removed a change purse from her pocket.

“My treat,” Suzanne said. “Theo told me that tomorrow is your birthday. I suspect he will want to treat you himself when he returns from Syracuse.”

Ilse’s smile was sad. “I do not have much to celebrate, do I?” Her eyes brimmed with tears as she clasped Suzanne’s forearm. “Do not be too afraid to take a risk, my dear. True love is worth it.”

She hurried from the restaurant.

After a day trip to Syracuse to meet with leaders of various religious groups willing to voice their support for allowing the residents of the fort to remain in America, Theo stepped off the train and turned up the collar of his coat against the drizzle. The platform was mostly deserted as he would expect at such a late hour. Inside the station, one lone figure moved back and forth behind the window of the waiting room as Theo made a dash for cover. He reached for the door, hoping there might be a taxi still waiting on the street side of the station.

“You’re finally back,” he heard a woman say, her voice laced with relief.

He glanced behind him, thinking someone else must have also left the train that was even now pulling out of the station. But then he stopped and turned. “Suzanne? What on earth are you doing here? It must be …” He looked at the clock over the ticket seller’s cage. “It’s past midnight.”

“It’s also raining cats and dogs, and there are no taxis.” She was wearing a rain slicker that he recognized as the one Selma kept hanging by the back door. Her hair was a mass of damp, unruly curls. She was carrying a large black umbrella that she handed over to him as she took his arm. “You must be famished,” she said, and he noticed that she seemed a little nervous.

“What’s going on?”
Who are you
was more the question he wanted to ask, for Suzanne had never acted this way before. She was—well, the truth was that she was acting as if they were sweethearts. Not that he had any objection to that. He’d been trying to take things slowly over the last few weeks but always in the hope that eventually she would see him as more than a friend—as more than a contact who could help her ferret out the information she needed to tell Ilse’s story.

That was the agreement she and Ilse had reached. It had been his aunt’s idea. One afternoon as he walked with her back to the fort, she had told him of her plan to tell Suzanne that she had her permission to tell the story of Franz and Ilse Schneider—how they met, fell in love, married, longed for a child, had that child, and found themselves caught up in a war that was not of their making but that was being orchestrated from the very country they had each loved as much as any American had ever loved the United States. Ilse’s only requirement was that Liesl was to be left out of the story at least by name and Franz’s name as well as her own were to be changed for Liesl’s protection.

Theo had tried without success to dissuade her. “You do not need to do this,” he had said. “Suzanne will—”

“Suzanne is a woman who is dedicated—far too dedicated—to her career and her ambition for that career. She will work doubly hard if she sees a—how do you Americans say it—a payoff?”

Now as he walked outside with Suzanne and raised the umbrella, holding it high to cover both of them, he wondered what could have happened in his absence to bring on this change in Suzanne. “Did you get something from Buch—some information that may help in finding Marta and the children?”

“No. There’s been no change there. I met with Ilse today, and we went over everything, but that only took a few minutes because there is nothing new to share.”

“So what did you talk about?”

She shrugged. “Your aunt is a very perceptive woman, Theo. And increasingly she is not afraid to state her opinions—on any topic.”

“And today’s topic was?”

“Topics, actually. For one, she seemed inordinately interested in my lack of faith. At first I thought perhaps you had told her the story of Natalie and the rest.”

“I would never do that.”

“That was exactly what she said. Then I realized that her questions grew out of her concern for us—you and me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“She believes that we are … fond of one another.”

“Can’t speak for you but yeah, I like you.”

“I think she is looking at our relationship as having moved beyond that stage.” She put her hand on his and tilted the umbrella so that his features were exposed to the streetlight they were passing. “Are you in love with me, Theo?”

He would not have been surprised if his reaction had been a feeling of being cornered, trapped. But instead he felt relief. It was finally out in the open. Never mind that he had not been the one to choose the timing or the wording.

“Yes. Yes, I am. Are you in love with me?”

She twisted her mouth to one side as she stared up at him. “I’m thinking about it.”

“I’ll take that,” he said and folded his arms around her, oblivious to the umbrella now dangling upside down.

On the eighth of May, Ilse awoke to the sounds of shouting and cheers from the parade ground. Liesl awoke at the same time and stumbled over to Ilse’s bed.

“Is it a party for your birthday, Mom? I’ll bet Gisele planned it to surprise you.”

But even Gisele was not likely to have created such a stir for Ilse’s birthday, especially not her first birthday without Franz there to celebrate with her.

“Get dressed,” she told Liesl as she threw back the covers and began putting on her clothes. “It must be news—good news.”

The hallway of the barracks was filled with sleepy-eyed people coming out of their apartments to investigate the chaos outside. Ilse shielded her eyes from the sun as she tried to make sense of what people were saying.

“It’s over!

“Hitler’s dead!”

“We won.”

Someone was holding up a newspaper with a headline set in type large and bold enough to be read from yards away. The headline was one word: SURRENDER!

“Oh Mama!” Liesl cried, using the term of address she had always used back in Munich. “This is the best birthday present ever. Everyone will celebrate.” She ran off to join her friends, who were dancing in a circle and shrieking with pure joy.

Many of the Jewish residents had begun dancing a folk dance that Ilse had learned was called the
Hora
. It was a lively dance also performed in a circle to music that someone was playing on an accordion and violin. As the circle whirled past her, Gisele spotted her and broke hands with the person next to her, leaving a hole.

“Come on,” she urged. “Ilse, it is finally over.” Gisele grabbed her hand and pulled her into the circle, and before she knew it, she was dancing with the others, moving with them to the center of the circle with their arms raised high and then back again. She had no idea what the words meant, but she caught onto them quickly and sang and laughed and stumbled round and round with the others until all she saw was the blur of their surroundings racing by as they danced.

Oh, if only Franz might have lived to see this day!
The war finally over and the dictators all dead—Hitler by his own hand. She looked at the faces of the people dancing and remembered their stories—so many horrors they had suffered, so many people lost to them forever. By contrast she counted Liesl and herself very fortunate indeed. They had Franz’s family, and perhaps now that the war was over in Europe, Marta would come out of hiding or be freed from one of those wretched camps or prisons. The only birthday present that Ilse truly wanted was to be reunited with her sister.

Gradually the dancing slowed and stopped, and although people were still laughing and shouting for the pure joy of it, they had begun to wander away, forming small clusters gathered around a copy of the newspaper or talking in low voices about what this news truly meant for them.

Liesl and her friends were still dancing—a silly little dance called the “Hokey Pokey” that they had learned from their British liberators back in Italy. Ilse moved closer to watch, her arm linked in Gisele’s.

Beyond the fence they could hear car horns blaring and people in town celebrating as well. Someone was setting off firecrackers, and somewhere a band was playing. Ilse looked toward the fence and saw a lone figure watching the celebration inside the chain link.

She knew at once that it was Detlef Buch. And she remembered how when they first arrived Liesl had thought those standing outside the fence were the ones imprisoned while she and all the other refugees were free.

Of course they weren’t free. The United States government would decide their fate—might already have done so. There had already been a good deal of activity inside the fort, readying things for the day the shelter would be closed for good and they would be held to that promise they had signed nine months earlier.

PART 3

S
UMMER
-F
ALL
1945