It's Just Lola (44 page)

  “MAMA!”  Lola dropped her sewing and ran while Estela’s shrill scream was still reverberating through the house.  What
was wrong
?  Lola’s
feet
raced faster than her
heart
as she flew down the stairs and out into the courtyard. 

The world froze. Lola’s heart stopped beating; sound stopped; time stopped.  The moment was frozen in time.  Herman
Wulf
was standing in the courtyard with one arm around Estela and reaching out for Joseph and Carlota with the other as they ran to him.  He was thinner than she remembered, and very pale, with a streak of grey in his hair.  “It’s a dream,” she told herself.  “That
’
s why I can’t move.  It’s a dream.  I know it’s a dream.”  Blackness descended.

“Lola, Lola, I knew you’d wait for me.  I love you so much.”  Lola felt someone rubbing her hand and something cool and wet on her face. 

She heard children babbling.
 
“Mama
,
Mama
, wake up and see Pop
Wulf
!”
Slowly Lola
lifted her eyelids
to
meet
the clear blue
gaze
and the familiar grin of Herman
Wulf
, seemingly back from the dead.

“Estela, bring Nellie to meet her father
.
”
Maggie
’s voice showed her excitement
.
 
“Here, drink this,” she commanded Lola, thrusting a glass of wine into
Wulf
’s hand.  He held the glass to Lola’s lips with one hand and helped her to a sitting position with the other.  She drank a couple of swallows before raising her hand to his face.  She felt the reddish stubble on his cheek and stared into his eyes in wonder.  She could see the hunger in his eyes.  It didn’t look like the hunger of a man too long without a woman; it looked like hunger for life itself.

Estela appeared, leading Nellie by the hand. 
Wulf
looked at the pair, and Lola felt the arm behind her tremble.

“Hello, Nellie,” he said softly.  Nellie clung to Estela with one hand and knuckled the sleep out of her eyes with the other.  “Did Estel
a
tell you I was your father?”  His voice stayed low and he made no attempt to pull the girl closer.  At Nellie’s small nod he continued.  “I know you can’t remember me, but I remember you.  I thought of you and your mother and your sisters and brother every day since I left you.  I love you
very
much.”  Nellie gave a
nother
small nod.
 
“Can you say Pop?  That is what I always called my father.  Try it.  Say Pop.”

Nellie sidled even closer to Estela.  “Op,” she said shyly.

“Bravo!  Now we aren’t strangers a
ny
more, are we?” 
Wulf
reached into his pocket.  Out came a handful of candy.  He held out one piece.  Nellie looked at her mother.  Lola nodded encouragingly.  Slowly Nellie reached out and took the candy.

“Say thank you,” said Estela in a whisper.  Nellie nodded and hid behind her sister.

“Thank you,” said Carlota, who hadn’t received any candy yet.  Everyone laughed as
Wulf
handed her a piece as well, saying that she was certainly welcome.

“Joseph, are you too old for candy?” 

“No, Pop.  I’ll never get too old for candy
.
” 
Wulf
handed him two pieces and then poured the rest of his horde into Estela’s hands telling her to distribute them among the children.

“Pedro
,
”
Wulf
called.  Pedro stepped forward.

“What’
s that on your upper lip?”  Pedro blushed and rubbed the mustache he was just learning to shave.  “Are you too old for candy?  Do you expect a cigar?”

“No,
s
ir.  I expect Joseph
got it
right.  I’ll never get too old for candy either.”  The boy blushed as his voice betrayed him and wavered into a higher register than he thought proper for his new manliness.

“Okay.  You and Estela take care of that candy and take the youngsters out for a walk.”  He pulled some coins out of his pocket and gave them to Pedro.  “Here’s some backup ammunition.”

“Yes, sir
,
” said Pedro.  He marshaled his young charges, and stooped to pick up Nellie.

“Nellie can stay.”

Wulf
still had an arm around Lola.  She said nothing, savoring his nearness.  She was still wondering if it was a
dream or a
miracle. 

“Bosun, can you get me something to wet my whistle?  I can’t move from the side of this delightful woman.”  He turned Lola’s face toward him
and
studied her face as though memorizing everything about it. 
H
e
gently stroked her hair.  Then he sat up and began talking.

“Gather ‘round, my friends, and I’ll tell you a sad tale of what the bosun here described as the incredible disappearance of Herman
Wulf
.”  Everyone got drinks and settled down to listen.

“
T
he night before we were to sail
, I went ashore and
stopped at a bar
for
a beer before heading back to the ship.
 
I
was minding
my own business, when a couple of Navy lads started sounding off, and somebody threw a punch
and it turned into a regular donnybrook
.” 

T
he bosun crack
ed
his knuckles
.  “Wish I’d been there.”

“
I’m glad
you weren’t
--w
e’d both’ve missed the ship.
 
Anyway, I tipped up my beer to finish it off when someone slammed into me from behind
,
and the
damned glass
split my lip
and loosened
a tooth
. 
B
y the time I got to
the door,
the Shore Patrol was coming in with the city police right behind them.

“I told them I hadn’t thrown a single punch and showed them my knuckles, but they just loaded me on the paddy wagon with all the rest.”  His voice was bitter and Lola
tightened her
grip
on his hand
.
 
“I told them my ship was leaving in the morning and I hadn’t been brawling.  Finally a cop asked which ship and asked to see my
paper
s.  I said I was a citizen and showed him my passport.” 
Wulf
took a deep drink and reached in his pocket for one more piece of candy.  He held it out toward Nellie
,
but
inched
it back when she reached for it.  She stepped closer, and he picked her up and sat her on his lap, giving her the candy.
 

“That’s when the nightmare started.  The cop opened my passport and started yelling, ‘We got ourselves a Hun, boys!’ and I suddenly had half a dozen cops roughing me up
.
  I wound up in a cell with handcuffs and my leg cuffed to the bunk.  I finally figured out that because my birthplace was Dresden, Germany they thought I was a spy or something. 
Hell,
I
was hanging on my mother’s teat when I left
Germany.  I sat cuffed to that bunk all night.  I couldn’t even take a leak.  Every time someone walked by I tried to tell them I was an American and they were making a mistake.  Morning came and I knew my ship had sailed. 

“When the shift changed they took off the cuffs and gave me some food.  No one said a word to me.  It was worse than terrible.  I thought I was in hell.
 
N
ext day they
moved
me to a
bigger
jail.  I talk
ed
to anyone within earshot, but
no one
paid attention
. 
T
he prisoners
were
yelling at
me to shut up.  At least
they
heard me.  One of them said passports don’t prove anything.  He knew where you could get any kind of passport you wanted, if you had
the
cash.  I
asked
if a spy
would get a fake passport
saying he
was born in Germany? 
A
t least the other prisoners stopped harassing me
then
.   

“After a couple of days someone came to see me who spoke German.  I didn’t know what the hell he was saying. 
All the
German I kn
o
w
is
a few swear words.  I don’t know how many days or weeks I waited in that jail.  I asked for paper and pen to write a letter to
you, but
they refused.  I said they could read it
,
but they
still
refused. 

“
It was a
g
e
s
before anyone
else
came to talk to me
--turned out to be some
guy from the Bureau of Investigation
.  He said
his agency
was
authorized by President Wilson to detain enemy aliens.  Part of me was so grateful to have a real person talk to me that I would
’
ve told him anything, but the other part was ready to go for his throat for calling me an enemy alien.  You
’
d
’
ve been proud of me, Lola.  I kept my temper and
said
he could check with the government that my passport was genuine.  I explained that my parents had come over from Germany when I was just a baby
, and
he could see I wasn
’
t an enemy alien.

“’If you were an enemy alien,’ he said, ‘my job would be easy.  I’d just ship you off to Utah
and
keep you in Fort Douglas
with the other enemy aliens we find
around here
.’  Then he said
i
f
my passport
was
forge
d
it would
’
ve been easy
, too,
because t
he
y could lock me up for forgery.

“
Then h
e started asking
w
hy I
wanted
to write letters to
Peru
?  What did I do when I went ashore
there
?  Why had I chosen
a
countr
y
known to
sympathize with
German
y
? Why had my ship never been attacked by German subs?  Why hadn
’
t
I
gone to the Embassy to get my wife a passport, if she existed?  Would the so-called letter home pass coded information?
 
I told him the truth about everything, but he just kept asking the same questions over and over.  At last he gave up and said he
’
d ask Washington for further orders.  T
he
y isolated me from the other prisoners for fear I
’
d subvert them.

“I
made
scratches on the wall to mark the days; sometimes I forgot;
maybe
sometimes I
did it more than once
. 
I stopped trying.
 
Finally the government guy
came
back and
took
me to a federal holding area
, not
the place in Utah.  He admitted he had no evidence that I was even a German sympathizer.  What about ‘innocent until proven guilty?’ I asked and he laughed.  It seems that in war time that doesn’t apply.  I wasn
’
t proven guilty, but neither was I innocent—at least in his eyes.” 
Wulf
raised his now empty glass to his lips and tilted it back.  In the silence that followed, Maggie refilled the glass.

“I told you I asked
the police
about you, didn’t I?” asked the bosun.

Wulf
nodded. 
“They never charge
d
me,
or
took my fingerprints or kept any record, as far as I know
—some justice.”  He drained his glass again. 
“
Y
ou were lucky the
y
didn
’
t remember me.  You could
’
ve been picked up as well—just for claiming to be my friend
.
”