The Woman Who Heard Color (20 page)

“Where are you?” he asked.

“With Mrs. Fletcher. Well, right now she’s in the kitchen and I’m—”

“So, your little ploy worked out?” She could hear the smile of approval in his voice.

“I’m not sure,” Lauren replied. “But, yes, I guess it did. She invited me to her home. I’ve got so much to tell you, but I can’t leave right now. You’ll be able to pick Adam up at day care?”

“No problem,” he said.

“Thanks so much.”

“She’s Hanna’s daughter?”

“Yes, and I’ve learned so much. I’ll tell you all about it tonight.”

“Can’t wait,” Patrick said. “See you then.”

Lauren rechecked her phone to make sure the ringtone was still off before sliding it back in her bag. She’d learned from interviewing older people that they started to distrust you as soon as you pulled out some miniature electronic device, so she generally kept it out of sight and silenced. As she stepped out into the hall she heard the shrill whistle of the teapot coming from the kitchen. She moved quietly, taking several steps to an open door, and peered in. The room didn’t look lived in, and from the twin beds she thought it was possibly a guest room. She glanced back to another door off the hall—the master bedroom? She could hear footsteps, Mrs. Fletcher shuffling from the kitchen toward the living room. As much as she was tempted, Lauren refrained from a closer look into the second room. Again she passed the dining room and it seemed now, as she stepped through the door for just a second, that it was only her imagination that had created the image of that darker tinted shape. The light falling into the room had changed in the time it took to boil water for tea, to use the toilet. The colors on the wall didn’t even look the same as they had just a few minutes ago.

Mrs. Fletcher was setting the tray on the table when Lauren entered the living room. She’d replaced the soggy napkins with fresh ones. After they had settled down again, cups filled with hot tea, Isabella said, “You know what happened to the Kandinskys that Gabriele Münter kept when the Russian left Germany? Some of them she was forced by legal rulings to return. The others she took very good care of, hiding them at her country home in Murnau during the first war, then the years of the Nazi rule, through the destructive years of the second war. On her eightieth birthday she donated them to the city of Munich, where they are now housed in a public gallery.”

“That’s lovely,” Lauren replied, though she knew this history. She’d visited the Lenbauchhaus in Munich where many of these paintings were displayed. “She saved them for the world to enjoy. It would have been dreadful had they been destroyed by a jilted lover, or war, or anything else.”

Isabella nodded in agreement and the two women sat in silence for several moments, sipping tea. Lauren felt more relaxed, now that she’d talked to Patrick, but there was still so much more she wanted to know. About Hanna. About the Kandinsky
Composition
. About the art in the Fletcher home.

She asked, “The Kandinsky painting hung in your home in Munich when you were a child? During the late twenties, early thirties?”

“Yes. And I have wonderful memories of those years,” Isabella replied, “though I suspect my parents tried to protect me from what was going on. It’s common knowledge now that these were horrific times. The stock market in New York crashed just after I turned two, and of course affected the economy of the entire world. With Germany still grappling with the aftermath of World War I, it wasn’t a pleasant environment. But I had no idea. When I look back, when I read about that period of history, I can hardly reconcile it with my childhood. I was so very happy and so very loved. But yes, the country continued to struggle. Everyone was looking for something to save us. Or someone—a superhero who could restore the glory that Germany once knew.”

“And that’s when Adolf Hitler came into the picture,” Lauren said.

“Yes,” Mrs. Fletcher answered. “The perfect storm. I think that’s the way they say it now—when all the conditions are exactly right for something terrifying to happen. That’s when Adolf Hitler entered the picture.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

 

Willy and Isabella ran up, then down, then up the stairs, checking through the hall window where they could get a better view of the street.

“I don’t see them yet,” Willy called in a loud voice, clearly audible to Hanna and Helene, who sat downstairs visiting in the music room. Moses and Jakob, Helene’s husband, were in the library. Talking politics and business, Hanna suspected, though she had requested they refrain from such discussions for the day. It was Willy’s twenty-first birthday. He had been exceptionally healthy that fall and winter, and Hanna was extremely grateful. Despite the dire conditions throughout Germany, today she felt a particular joy.

“I can’t see them yet,” Willy called down again.

“He’s been waiting for days,” Hanna told Helene. “I hope they’re not much longer.”

“Leni,” Helene replied with a shake of her head. “Perhaps she can no longer rely on mere nature for her beauty, and it would be unfair to ask that she arrive on time without sufficient preparations.” Helene, with all her jewels and expensive clothes, could not compete with Leni’s beauty. The woman had gained considerable weight since Hanna had first met her, yet Leni, who’d been pregnant for what seemed like half of her life, was still as trim and slender as a teen, and she always looked beautiful.

“They’re coming, they’re coming,” Willy’s voice echoed from the top of the stairs.

Within seconds he was shouting with excitement, “Mama, Mama,” as he and four-year-old Isabella came rushing in, the little girl dragging him by the hand. “We must begin the music. Baby sister says we must begin the music.”

Hanna smiled, observing that Isabella was hardly a baby anymore. But to Willy she would always be his “baby sister.” She recalled those early walks in the park in Munich, Willy pushing the baby in her pram, inviting everyone they met to take a peek, declaring, “You must look. She is the most beautiful baby in the world!”

Some turned away with disgust, and Hanna saw the underlying disbelief in many, questioning how this strange young man could lay claim to the most beautiful baby in the world. But those who accepted his invitation and peeked into the carriage would always exclaim, “Why, yes, your little sister is the most beautiful baby in the world!”

Now it was Isabella leading Willy, tugging him up and down the stairs, instructing him on how his party should be conducted. It was Isabella who had suggested they celebrate in the music room because this was where Willy was happiest. Though she often took over the decision making for her much older brother, he was always agreeable, and oh, how she loved him. Willy, of course, thought this precious little girl had been created just for him.

“Isn’t she the bossiest child you’ve ever seen?” Hanna asked Helene with a laugh.

“She knows what she wants,” Helene replied with a proud smile, as if this beautiful little girl were her own.

From the beginning it was quite evident that Isabella had a mind of her own. The child spoke early, her first word
Papa
, her second
Baba
, her baby word for her brother, Willy. She was a busy little girl with an independent spirit, and demanded everything just so—always her way—which at times could be a test for both mother and child. If Hanna gave her an apple, she would insist on an orange. If her mother chose a satin ribbon for her hair, Isabella would pick velvet.

Leni, who popped out babies faster than one could count them, assured her sister that this was all very normal, when Hanna knew what she really meant was,
You’ve never had a normal child
. “It’s perfectly natural for a child to challenge a parent,” Leni had said with authority. And challenge Isabella did. But there was also a softness, a sweetness to her. In the evening when Hanna put her to bed and they settled down to read a story, talk about the events of the day, and share a prayer, thanking God for Papa, Willy, Helene, Sasha, Aunt Leni, and an enormous list including all her uncles, cousins, and just about anyone who had touched her life in any way, she would always beg her mother to stay a little longer. As Hanna tucked her in, the child planted kisses on her forehead, her nose, her cheeks, and her chin, and Hanna felt Isabella was the true completion of her life.

Each time she smiled, Hanna saw Johann Keller. Yet the guilt she felt was tinged by the enormous joy and gratitude for the gift of this beautiful child. Moses adored her, and never once questioned that she was his own flesh and blood.

Hanna rose from her chair and looked out the window. The yard was dappled with late-winter sunlight and faded colors, creating a muted melody. Often this time of year she longed for the sounds and colors of spring. One of the boys was unlatching the gate, and then they were all running toward the house, the smallest stooping to pick up a stone and tossing it into the fountain, turned off for the season. One of the girls carefully balanced a gift. Leni and Kurt followed, along with their eldest daughter, her husband, and their new baby.

Leni was wearing a suit that Hanna had given her, one of her own that would have been out of style if Leni had not made some alterations. Her little sister had obviously paid attention to their stepmother’s instructions in sewing. She looked stunning.

“She looks so much like her aunt Leni,” Helene observed, glancing toward Isabella, who was arranging the sheets on which she’d had her mother write out the words for the songs, Willy’s favorites. Not yet five, she could already read.

“She does,” Hanna replied.

“How fortunate,” Helene remarked quietly with a little toss of her head, “that she got her beauty from your side of the family. The intellectual aptitude from her father.”

Hanna flinched a little at that, but turned and gazed back out the window. She did not dare take insult, as she was thankful that Helene attributed the child’s cleverness to her father, Moses Fleischmann. And yes, she was grateful that Isabella resembled Leni, and equally as grateful that she did not inherit Leni’s intellect. Her sister was easily led, and at times Hanna wondered if she even had a mind of her own.

The cousins were entering the room, hugging both Willy and Isabella, greeting their aunts, placing the gifts on a small table that was decked with a festive cloth. Leni reached out and gave each of the women a quick kiss on each cheek. “Why, Helene, you are here again! One would think you might move to Munich, but I suppose it would be impossible for your husband to leave his business in Berlin.” She eyed Helene’s ruby broach. “You look very lovely on this happy occasion!” she exclaimed, turning to her older sister.

“The children are so excited,” Hanna said, surveying the lively little group. “Isabella, please go to the library and tell Papa the party has begun.” Isabella tugged at her favorite cousin’s hand, instructing her to come along.

As Willy greeted his guests, then as they sat for music and games, enjoyed refreshments and gifts, Hanna thought how completely happy she could be if her family could be swept up and deposited in a different place, a different time. Since Isabella’s arrival, she felt a renewed companionship and shared love with her husband, and she could hardly recall the sense of despair that had invaded her during her voyage to and from America. Being here with Helene and Leni, their husbands and the children, Hanna felt content.

Yet even though she had admonished Moses to refrain from such conversations, no one could ignore what was going on all around them in Germany. Moses said it would get better, but Hanna feared this instability, this uncertain economy, could swallow them all. The stock market crash had reverberated around the world. The German Republic had yet to earn the people’s trust, and they had barely time to catch their breath and regroup after the war and daunting ills that followed. Germany defaulted on the repayment plan. American loans, which were basically supporting the economy, were recalled, and once more Germany was compelled to look for a rescue.

Hanna could feel and see the tension all around her in Munich.

At home, she heard the fear and worry in talk among the servants. Spouses working in the factories had lost their jobs.

“Germany, the most powerful nation in the world?” she overheard Frau Weiss, the cook, say one evening as Hanna was about to enter the kitchen. She paused a moment at the door.

“Now it is mere survival,” the woman declared, resignation in her voice.

The cook’s young assistant said, “I’m grateful for the work here, but how long will Herr Fleischmann be able to keep us on? When even the rich no longer have money, who will be spending it on pretty pictures and statues?”

Over the past weeks, Hanna had repeatedly heard a name that had been moving throughout every circle in Munich for the past two years, gradually gaining momentum.

Adolf Hitler.

One morning on her way home from the gallery she stopped by the market to pick up a treat of fresh fruit for Willy and Isabella’s lunch, and she overheard a conversation among strangers.

“My husband went to the beerhouse last night to hear him speak,” a woman said as she surveyed a bin of apples. “Herr Hitler wants to make life better for us working folks. He supports the unions. There will be pensions for the old, free education for the young.”

“He’s going to build up the army again,” a plump young woman joined in.

“But the treaty prohibits that,” another woman said as she asked the vendor for a kilo of apples.

“To hell with the treaty,” the vendor jumped in as he placed several bright red apples on his scales. “Nothing but a betrayal by the Republic, that French treaty. What we need is someone, a real German, to say the hell with that piece of rubbish. To hell with the Republic that does nothing but stab us in the back.”

Again on the streetcar ride home, Hanna heard the same.