Crossing the Borders of Time (46 page)

With Norbert’s formal education behind him, he began work as a novice cutter in one of the new diamond companies that refugees from The Netherlands and Belgium were launching in Cuba. Being new to the country, this industry was one in which refugees were granted work permits, and so thousands of men and women trained to cut and polish rough stones from South Africa. Proximity and favorable American trade regulations facilitated their import to Cuba for cutting and their export back to New York for market. Novices in Cuba perfected skills in cutting eight-sided stones predominantly used in jewelry settings. Trainees practiced, however, on gems so very tiny that when Norbert loudly despaired that he had lost one and it would cost him, it was futile even to bother hunting for it. Only by luck, at breakfast days later, did Janine happen to notice the extra gleam in his eye, where, lodged in the corner, the little diamond was found to be hiding.

Between work and play, Norbert was rarely at home. Had the Nazis not come to power in Germany, his future as an underling in the family business—caught between his demanding father and his irascibly fragile uncle Heinrich—would have been determined for him. Now he regarded losing his eventual share of their company as an acceptable price to buy independence. His frustrated boyhood efforts to win Sigmar’s approval weighed less heavy in Cuba: free of school and the duty to help his father with work, no longer pressured to burnish the family image, he escaped the scrutiny he had always detested. Consequently, with dollar bills lining his pockets and no shortage of female admirers, he was, at twenty-two years old, soon the only family member to enjoy Havana as the lively tropical playground it was. Invariably, when telephone number 8809 rang in the front room of the apartment, it carried a girlish voice asking in mellifluous Spanish,
por favor
, to speak with Norberto. When he was in, Norbert would dash to answer it first. But bathed and scented, handsome and carefully dressed, he was more often out, allowing Sigmar to answer requests for his son with three clipped Spanish words—“
En la calle!
” Out in the street! Out on the town!

Sigmar spent much of his day on the Avenida de los Presidentes, which, like the Paseo, featured a parklike median strip sweeping down to the sea and marble benches under the trees. Here he focused on reading
El Mundo
, the liberal newspaper, trying his best to teach himself Spanish. At home, beneath his windows, he heard the call of the lottery vendors selling numbers and the seductive illusion of life-changing riches. But a man of his staunch frugality was never tempted to gamble, nor would he accept any money from Norbert, so that living in limbo meant constant worry over finances. Besides the family debts he recorded on the lined pages of one student notebook, in a second notebook he listed in German all daily expenses, from potatoes and pickles to laundry and paper. Warned of thieves who dangled fishing rods through open windows to hoist men’s trousers from bedroom chairs in dark of night, Sigmar slept with his money under his pillow. And more than once—the maid having blithely stripped his bed in the morning and shaken his sheets over the side of the terrace—he scurried downstairs to crawl through the bushes to hunt for his cash. With each week that passed, he became ever more eager to get to New York, to pay off his debts and plan for the future.

In the steamy spring of 1943, Janine returned home one evening to find her father angrily sputtering. Sigmar’s head shone with perspiration, and he gnawed a cigar as he paced the floor of checkerboard tile. “
Hasch du mal so was gehört?
” Have you ever heard anything like it? he was saying in dialect to Alice as he reviewed the discussion they’d had with the visitor who only moments before had left the apartment. Alice sat quietly fanning herself with a piece of paper folded in tight accordion pleats. She had lingered too long that afternoon with Emma Wolf in a café where the fierce sun had burned her fair skin through the window. Now red blisters painfully pocked her arms and her legs.

Perhaps Janine had passed their guest on the sidewalk? Sigmar asked. His name was Sokoloff, the brother of Herbert’s wife, Estelle. As promised back when Herbert first pushed the idea of refuge in Cuba, Mr. Sokoloff was willing to use his official connections to help speed up their American visas. But his conversation left Sigmar outraged. He was shocked that their guest, whose wedding ring was plain on his finger, had shamelessly sat at their table over coffee and cake, extolling his girlfriend.

“ ‘My
amie
is beautiful,’ ” Sigmar quoted him, recalling that Sokoloff had used the French word for a female friend. “I’ll help you get to my
amie
. She’s not far from here. You’ll spend a few days, and then you’ll move on to New York.” But could Sokoloff really imagine that Sigmar—no matter how impatient he was to get to the United States—would coolly condone such an illicit liaison? That Sigmar would knowingly take his own wife and daughters to be houseguests of a married man’s mistress? It was simply
verrückt
. Crazy.

“I’d prefer to stay right here in Havana than have to lie to Herbert and Estelle when we get to New York,” Sigmar fumed. “What in God’s name could the man have been thinking, to come here and brag about his mistress to us? Unbelievable chutzpah! And then to suggest
we
pay her a visit!”

Janine listened in silence, then broke into giggles.

“This is funny to you? You are laughing at
me
?” Sigmar attempted to summon the bulging-eyed glare that proved so threatening when his children were young.

“Papa, I think you’re mixing up your English and French,” she more gently suggested. “M-I-A-M-I.” She pronounced the word slowly. “
Miami
, not
mon amie. Miami
, Florida. It sounds like your Mr. Sokoloff is arranging for us to leave for the States!”

On July 13, 1943, Margaret L. Hannan, principal of St. George’s School, wrote and officially stamped a letter that listed the courses Janine had taken, with the superior grades she achieved, and recommended her as college material:

Her progress in English was remarkable, yet her work showed that she possessed knowledge far in advance of her ability to express that knowledge in what was to her a new language. She was tested by examinations of the standard of New York College Entrance Examinations and gained credits in Medieval History (91%), French 3 years (98%), Spanish 4 years (94%). Her English work was very good, but she still needs practice.

We feel sure that as soon as Janine has more practice in the English language, she will find no difficulty in qualifying for the university of her choice.

Janine proved a good “mixer” in school, and took part in the swimming competitions for which the school entered.

Her conduct throughout has been excellent. We wish her all success.

Miss Hannan peered above the rimless glasses that always perched near the end of her nose as she extended the letter, shook Janine’s hand, and inquired into the family’s plans. “We are all very sorry to see you go,” she said. “But you must promise me one thing: when you get to the States, please don’t ruin all the work that we’ve done by picking up that thoroughly dreadful American English!”

Six days later, the vice-consul of the United States signed and approved Sigmar’s affidavit in support of the family’s immigration visas. Norbert, though, decided to remain in Havana. He persuaded his parents that he was better off working there than being drafted into the American Army and shipped back to Europe. His experience in the French Foreign Legion had sharply curtailed his previous zest for fighting the Germans. Knowing Norbert, Sigmar and Alice also suspected the influence of a saucy Cuban señorita, but since they could not dispute that he was safe and content with life in Havana, they sadly relented to his staying behind.

On his affidavit, Sigmar was obliged once again to define himself as a refugee: “
I was born on December 29, 1880, at Ihringen, Germany. I am a citizen of no country, formerly Germany
,” he stated. “
I am unable to obtain from the authorities of the government to which I owe (or owed) allegiance a passport valid for travel to the United States
.”

Photos of Sigmar, Alice, and the girls were affixed to the form, and each of them signed, Janine writing her name as
Johanna Dora Gunzburger
, thus ending her travels under almost the same name as she began them in Freiburg.

On August 10, they left for Miami. Before Janine and Trudi nervously boarded the plane for the first flight of their lives, Norbert kissed them on both cheeks and rewarded them with his most disarming grin. Then he enfolded both his sisters in his arms, and with their three heads huddled together, he gave them a little parting guidance. The musky scent of his favorite cologne found its way to their hearts as they felt the warmth of his words in their ears: “Before you take off, you mustn’t forget to check for the parachutes under your seats,” he counseled. “You’ll definitely need them in case you have to bail out.”

Sigmar’s affidavit of July 19, 1943, for use in lieu of a passport for the family’s travel from Cuba to the United States

This time there was no glint of a misplaced diamond to draw their attention to his mischievous eyes, and so they panicked to find their parachutes missing when they got on the plane and made fools of themselves. And that was not the only surprise of their journey.

The two sisters landed at the Florida airport proudly wearing identical light blue gabardine suits, with slim, straight skirts and mandarin collars. Just as Alice had done in leaving Freiburg and Lyon, she had insisted that each of her daughters have one new traveling outfit, custom made for arriving in style, first impressions being so very important. Both of her girls wore their hair with parts on the left and curls to their shoulders. And while Trudi’s hair was a little bit lighter and she had brown eyes and the faintest dusting of Alice’s freckles, and Janine had blue eyes and broader shoulders, they might very easily have been taken for twins, dressed as they were in the same clothes, wearing the same bright smiles of anticipation.

“
Was werden da die Leute sagen?
” What will the people say when they see you? Sigmar had playfully asked when they dressed for their trip, just as he had when they donned their Passover best as children in Freiburg. But to their dismay, as they walked in their new finery through the Miami airport, the American people said nothing at all. No whistles, no winks, no clicks of the tongue, no appreciative comments from men who rushed by, which, after more than a year in Cuba, came as a shock.

“I’m sorry to tell you I think we left something important behind in Havana,” Trudi observed to her sister. “And I don’t mean Norbert.”

“What’s that?” Janine stopped and put down her suitcase. In fear, she surveyed the terrain of the past, scarred by losses, and she braced herself for an additional one, as yet unmarked.

“Our looks,” Trudi grimly replied.