Ashes (20 page)

“We'll make it another party!” she said.

The Christmas tea party was lovely, and on our way out I noticed a picture of a very handsome young man in a uniform on a bookshelf. Fräulein Hofstadt saw me looking at it and she went over and got the picture down.

“Ah yes, a very dear person in my life.” She blinked, and I could see a tear sparkling on her eyelashes. That was all she said as she put the picture back on the shelf.

 

 

It was cold when we stepped outside, and Rosa and I both resisted looking down the alley for the gleaming black limousine.

“I wonder,” Rosa said, “if maybe she had a romance with Arnold Fanck.”

“Are you crazy?” I stopped stock still as the snow swirled down around us.

“Well, she called him ‘Arnold.'”

“That's no reason to think they had a love affair. Didn't you see how she looked when she showed us that picture? That was
him
. That was her fiancé. She is faithful to his memory. She will never, ever stop loving him. I know it.” I paused, then said in a dreamy voice, “And her name is Katrina.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Rosa asked.

“Katrina is the same as Catherine, like Catherine Barkley.”

“Who is Catherine Barkley?”

“Oh, Rosa, she's the main character in the best book I have ever read.
A Farewell to Arms
by Ernest Hemingway. It is so romantic. I'll read some of it to you tonight.” Rosa and I were headed back to my apartment. Mama had said she could sleep over.

 

 

So when we got home and tucked into the twin beds in my bedroom, which now seemed too pink and fussy after the sophistication of Fräulein Hofstadt's apartment, I started by reading a love scene from
A Farewell to Arms
. It was the scene where Catherine unpins her hair. I was sure that Hemingway wrote all these details because he must have had just such a love affair. So while the snow fell outside the window of my bedroom, collecting like miniature ski slopes in the corners of the windowpanes, I read.

Rosa sighed. “That is so beautiful. He must have really taken some girl's hair down and then . . . and then, you know, they did it.”

Yeah,
I thought.
Like Ulla and Karl doing it.
I touched my own short-cropped hair.
Maybe I should think about growing it again.

The things that happened could only have happened during a fiesta. Everything became quite unreal finally and it seemed as though nothing could have any consequences. It seemed out of place to think of consequences during the fiesta.

-Ernest Hemingway,
The Sun Also Rises

 

 

 

 

E
ven though Baba was Jewish, she always celebrated Christmas with us. She would come midafternoon on the day of Christmas Eve to help Mama and Hertha decorate the tree “in secret.” In secret simply meant away from the eyes of children. That was the German custom. The decorated tree was to be a surprise, unveiled before the traditional Christmas Eve dinner. Baba had called to say that she would be a bit late and that Mama and Hertha should start without her. I took the call and then went to find Mama to give her the message. I heard her voice coming from Papa's study. Papa had come home from his office early since it was a holiday.

“He'll come back, won't he?” I heard Mama say. “He has papers here, doesn't he?”

“Yes, important ones.”

I stopped outside the study door to listen. At first I wasn't sure who they talking about. But the next words clarified everything.

“But when I went with them to Caputh just before they left, you know, so they could close it up, when we walked out the door he turned to Elsa and said, ‘Take a good look. You will never see it again.' ”

It all made sense. More than two weeks earlier, Papa had gone with Einstein to help him lock up the house and look at a water pipe Einstein was concerned about shortly before he and his wife left for America. He was much more concerned about the plumbing than the angry American women who had protested his anticipated visit.

“Really?” I heard Mama gasp. There was silence, then my mother's voice again. “But the Prussian Academy, the spring conference.” There was another long pause. “Otto, you said there had been some rumors back then. And now, has he resigned?”

At this point I tromped my feet lightly on the carpet as if I were just arriving outside the study door and called out, “Mama! Baba called and said she is going to be a little late and you and Hertha should start decorating the tree.”

Mama came out of the study, her face creased with worry. She was wringing a handkerchief. This was a habit of hers that resulted in a lot of shredded handkerchiefs. She even refused to buy any fancy handkerchiefs, particularly those with lace trim, because she knew they wouldn't last. I don't know whether it was the light or just the lines etched in Mama's brow, but I suddenly noticed that she looked old. Maybe it was the way she was standing, but it gave me a terrible fright.

“Mama!” I said sharply. “Stand up straight. You look like a little old lady.” I was taken aback by my own words. I never spoke to Mama this way. But she just blinked and stood up taller.

Maybe I was the one who had suddenly grown older. I didn't know. But I was frightened for some reason. All I could think of was that this was not the way I should have been feeling on Christmas Eve. Had I outgrown Christmas?

“Go write your
Briefe ans Christkindl
.”

“Yes, Mama, of course.”

“And tell Ulla to start hers as well. By the time you finish, we'll have the tree almost done.”

How much did she think I had to write to Father Christmas? It was the custom to place a letter to Christkindl on one's the window sill on the first Sunday of Advent, but we always did this on Christmas Eve. It was called a
Briefe ans Christkindl
. They would, of course, blow away after a short time. Nonetheless we wrote them in fancy ink and decorated them with colored sugar glued to the paper. When we were younger, Ulla and I always went to great lengths to make them pretty. But as we grew older we took less time with them. Now I felt it was just a bit of a childish old tradition. I went to Ulla's room and gave her some of the colored-sugar packets Mama had prepared.

“We're supposed to write our windowsill letters.” I suddenly noticed that her eyes were red as if she had been crying.

“What's wrong with you?”

“Nothing.”

“Did you have a fight with Karl?”

“No! What makes you think that?”

“It looks like you've been crying.”

“I don't cry when I have fights with Karl,” she said fiercely. I found this such an odd response that I couldn't say anything except, “Here's the colored sugar.”

I went to my room and didn't really know what to write. Everything just seemed off in our house. But I spread some glue around the edges of the paper and aimlessly sprinkled some silver sugar grains on, then a few pink ones over that. I dipped my pen in the gold ink that I kept for special occasions and began to write.

“Dear Christkindl . . .” I stopped. I didn't know what to say. Yes, there were things I wanted. Mama already knew about them. A cardigan sweater and matching sleeveless one to wear under it, which I had seen in the window at Wertheim. But then I thought of the SA guards there and my desire for it just faded. The Jack London book, but I couldn't even remember the translator's name. As I said, nothing seemed quite right. What did I really want? New telltales for
Ratty
? I suddenly remembered that sunstruck day early in summer messing about in boats. Me at the tiller of
Ratty
, Hessie as my crew, and Professor Einstein and Papa in
Tümmler
, both of them so involved in imagining a universe that they paid no heed to the wind that had begun to stir on the lake.

“Auf wiedersehen!”
Uncle Hessie had called, tipping his hat as we sailed past them. But now it was
leb wohl
, not
auf wiedersehen
. For this was truly good-bye. Einstein had told his wife to take a good look when they left their house in Caputh. For in fact, it was good-bye to all that. I just knew it.

So that was all I wrote in my windowsill letter.
Dear Christkindl, Leb wohl. Your friend, Gaby.

 

 

“All right, all right!” Mama came walking down the hall. “You can come out now. Tree's up. Baba's here.” Mama looked much better. She had freshened her makeup and changed into a pretty long skirt and silk blouse. I was wearing the dark green velvet dress that Hessie had given me.

“Oh, Gaby, you look so nice!” Ulla said. She herself looked fine now and seemed to have recovered from whatever was bothering her.

“Do you have Mama's and Baba's gifts?” I whispered.

“Yes, they didn't have the scarf in the blue, I got it in a very nice pale green. And I got the handkerchief set for Baba. Do you have Papa's photo album?” She asked.

“Yes, and I got it monogrammed with his initials. They didn't charge me extra because he is such a good customer at that shop.”

Mama had begun playing the song “O Tannenbaum” on the piano. Our celebration always took place in the music room because music was a big part of our Christmas.

“Oooh, Mama!” we exclaimed as we always did on Christmas Eve when we walked into the music room and saw the tree glowing with lights and the Venetian glass icicles that Mama and Papa had bought on their honeymoon to Italy. There were also wonderful marzipan ornaments that Mama and Hertha molded from almond paste and painted over the years. Our first task was to find the new ones.

“Ratty!”
I squealed as I saw a replica of my little sailboat bobbling on the end of a branch. Mama always tried to do something very personal for each of us. “Look! Look, Ulla, even with the sails! What's yours?” I asked.

“Well, I haven't found it yet.”

“Go a little to the left,
Schatzi
,” Mama directed Ulla.

I saw Ulla's hand reach out toward a little two-inch-long violin.

Papa came over holding Ulla's old violin case, but a big blue ribbon was tied around it.

“No . . .” Ulla seemed to breathe the single word more than actually say it. She sat down on the piano bench, untied the ribbon, and opened the case. Inside lay a brand-new darkly gleaming violin.

Ulla lifted her eyes. There were like twin blue lakes trembling with tears.

“You got in,” Mama said.

“Vienna! I got in?”

“So soon!” I exclaimed. The audition had only been a few weeks before.

“They must have really like Ulla's performance. Look, it's not a Stradivarius,” Papa said. “But you need a decent instrument.” Suddenly tears were streaming down Ulla's face. She jumped up and ran from the room.

“What's wrong with her?” Papa said. “She got in. Why is she crying?” Baba gave me a nervous glance.

“She'll be all right,” Mama said. “She's just so shocked. You know she was very anxious and now . . . and now . . .” Mama's voice began to dwindle. She looked old and worried again.

“I'm fine! I'm fine!” Ulla came back into the music room blowing her nose heartily. “I don't know I just . . . I was just overcome, that's all. I'm so excited. I just didn't know how I really did at the audition.”

“Well let me pour us something to drink and let's toast your career,” Papa said.

“It's not a career yet, Papa.” Ulla laughed.

“Try out the violin. Play us something.”

Ulla picked up the violin and plucked each of the four strings. Mama went to the piano and played a chord, to help her tune. This went on for perhaps a minute or so and finally Ulla looked at Mama, nodded, and began to play “Greensleeves.”

She played this old English ballad so beautifully. Clear, limpid notes sparkled in the air. In those first measures it was as if when she drew the bow across the strings she were releasing the music into the sky, each sound illuminating the night. And there was such purity, such tenderness. Mama played the harmony, and she nodded at Baba to sing, for Baba had a lovely voice.