The Woman Who Heard Color (22 page)

While there was but a small crowd gathered in the Marienplatz that afternoon, there were several soldiers in starched uniforms with shiny boots and swastikas on their arms, weapons at their sides, surveying the square. Hanna sensed that Leni felt more secure now that Hitler was rebuilding Germany’s forces, but these men terrified Hanna. When she went out, she often turned the other way and took a longer route to her destination, just to avoid them. At times it seemed they were everywhere.

“I’m frightened,” Hanna told her sister in a low voice. “The Nazi government claims they are making life better for all Germans, yet their definition of Germans has become rather narrow.” Hanna stared at her sister, knowing full well that Leni knew what she was talking about.

“We’ll get through it,” Leni assured her with far too much brightness in her voice.

How could she be so cheerful? Hanna wondered. At least she had sensitivity enough not to say, “Things are so much better now that Hitler is running the country.” But she had heard it from others, overheard conversations in the shops, from the servants speaking about family members who had finally gone back to work—that for the majority of the middle-class Germans, the economic situation had improved.

She felt herself grow warm with anger toward her sister. Could Leni not remember that it was Moses who had taken care of her family through the hard times, that it was not Hitler? Hanna wanted to turn and slap her and tell her to wake up and see what was true, that what she was seeing as good times would not last either. That there was evil in the air.

“Mama, mama.” Willy ran to his mother with a big grin. “Can we have ice cream?”

“Ice cream!” Hanna said with a laugh, patting Willy’s bright red cheeks, pulling his wool cap, which was flapping about, down snuggly over his pink ears. “It’s much too cold for ice cream!”

“Then chocolate cake?” Little Isabella had now joined them and took her big brother’s hand. “And warm milk with chocolate, too!” she exclaimed.

“Yes,” Willy said with a clap of his gloved hands, “chocolate cake. And the cousins, too?”

Hanna had had enough of her sister for the day, but she knew how much Willy and Isabella loved this time with the cousins.

“Chocolate! Chocolate!” Willy shouted, throwing his arms in the air.

“Yes, of course,” Hanna said, tapping her finger to her mouth, her way of telling him not to talk so loudly. “We’ll go by the bakery on our way home.”

The women said nothing more as they gathered the children and headed for home. But Hanna thought of an earlier conversation she’d had with her sister. Leni had declared that Hitler was a great supporter of the arts, that it was his intention to make art available to the common people. She presented this as if it would please Hanna.

It was true that shortly after he became Chancellor, Adolf Hitler had laid the cornerstone for a national art museum. The government’s Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda soon established a series of chambers to oversee film, radio, music, theater, literature, journalism, painting, sculpture, and graphics. But Hanna knew that the Nazis’ definition of art was as narrowly defined as their definition of a true German. These chambers were merely a way of controlling creativity.

Directors, even non-Jews, had been dismissed from state galleries for showing art that the Reich did not approve of.

Literature had taken a hit with mass burnings of books in Berlin.

Would the paintings be next? she wondered.

When they arrived at the bakery, Hanna took Willy inside the small shop while Leni, the others in tow, headed toward the Fleischmann home to request the kitchen girls heat water for tea and warm the milk and chocolate.

A man and woman stood in front of the display case. “
Guten Tag
, Frau Fleischmann,” the woman said.

“Guten Tag,”
Hanna replied. They looked familiar, but she could not recall who they were.

Willy pressed his nose up against the display case filled with lovely cakes and pastries.

“Which one?” Hanna asked.

“Can we pick two whole cakes?” he asked, glancing back at his mother. She noticed he’d left a little smudge on the glass.

“One should be enough,” Hanna replied, and then she heard it, barely a whisper, but it might as well have been shouted.

“Mischling,”
the woman said in a quiet voice to her husband. “The little retarded half-breed.”

Hanna turned, her eyes boring through the woman, who quickly lowered her gaze toward the pastry display as if the words had not come out of her mouth.

Hanna stared down at the lovely assortment of sweets under the glass case, and in her mind’s eye she imagined herself saying,
Yes, two. I’ll take the chocolate cake, and yes, this lovely crème pie.
And then she pictured herself turning around and smashing the cream pie into the woman’s face. She placed her hand on the edge of the display case, to steady herself. She was shaking with rage.

She knew she could not exhibit such behavior with her son here by her side, so instead she took a deep, deep breath, grabbed Willy’s hand, and said, “We’ll go to the bakery down the street.” Quickly, she pulled her bewildered son toward the door.

 

 

“
T
hen what did you do?” Moses asked her that evening. “We went and got the cake at a different bakery. I didn’t want to confront the woman with Willy right there. He didn’t hear or maybe he didn’t understand, and I just didn’t . . . Oh, Moses, what are we to do? Hitler has stirred up so much hate—toward those who are different, toward the Jews.”

“Hitler did not invent anti-Semitism,” he answered calmly.

Hanna knew this was true and Moses had survived in this world for many years, and perhaps learned from his father, that in such a hostile society one must strive for personal satisfaction, hold one’s head high, take care of family, and remain principled, not hateful.

“Hate met with hate accomplishes nothing,” Moses replied with his familiar mantra.

“But it isn’t right.”

“No, of course it isn’t. But we’ll get through it.”

Hanna stared at her husband. This was exactly what Leni had said that afternoon.

 

 

T
hey tried to live their lives with as few changes and interruptions as possible. They didn’t talk about what was going on in Germany when the children might overhear. Isabella was too young to understand, and Willy too innocent. They continued with their outings, though these were less frequent, and Hanna was always careful, with a watchful eye.

One fine spring day, she said to Sasha, “Let’s take the children for a picnic lunch.”

So they packed a basket with fruit and cheese, bread and pastries, and took off for the Englischer Garten.

When they arrived they spread a blanket to relax in a little wooded area.

Isabella shouted, “Butterflies, Mama! Look at the lovely butterflies!”

Willy asked for an apple and requested to cut it himself. Within seconds, he had sliced into his finger, and it oozed a deep red. The two women each grabbed a napkin. Hanna reached for Willy, pressing the linen to his finger to stop the bleeding.

“I’m sorry, Mama,” he apologized.

“It will be all right, darling,” she reassured him. “It was an accident.” The napkin had turned a scarlet red, and Sasha handed her another. Finally they were able to stop the bleeding. Hanna turned back to check on Isabella, and a panic far worse than one caused by the sight of blood surged through her. She was gone!

“Isabella!” Hanna shouted as she stood. “Sasha, where is she?”

“After the butterflies?”

“How could she have disappeared so quickly? Stay here with Willy.”

Hanna took off, sprinting across the path, looking up, then back, then down. A hot, uncontrollable fear rushed from her heart and invaded every part of her body.

“Have you seen a little girl?” Hanna asked the first person she saw, a young man walking a dog. “She’s seven, almost eight, with long blond hair.”

He shook his head.

Hanna flew down the path shouting, “Isabella, Isabella.” She glanced over at a nearby pond and would not allow herself to believe her daughter might have gone near the water. She threaded in and out of the wooded areas along the main path, asking everyone she saw, “Have you seen a little blond girl?”

When she saw a group of soldiers coming toward her, Hanna’s heart dropped to her feet. In a panic, she turned, walking quickly—afraid to run, thinking they might chase after her. Quickly she moved in the opposite direction, and then after glancing back, realizing they were not following her, again she ran.

It might have been five minutes before she spotted Isabella, standing in front of a man who was sitting on a bench. But it seemed like a day, a month, an eternity.

“Isabella,” Hanna panted, out of breath, as she rushed up to her. “You have frightened Mama terribly. You must never do that again.” She pulled the child to her and hugged her tightly.

“A little girl shouldn’t be wandering about by herself,” the man said flatly.

Hanna released her from the hug and took her hand. She could not defend herself, but with the shame came relief that she had found her safe.

“Particularly a little Jewish girl.” His words came out more threat than warning. Hanna had always felt Isabella would be protected by the way she looked—her blond hair, her very blue eyes, but now this man . . . How did he know? Hanna stared at him, but said nothing. She had never seen him before. He was neither young nor old. His hair was a light brown and his eyes the color and tone of mud. A slow grin spread across his face and there was a small gap between his two front teeth. He reached up and ran a tobacco-stained finger along his lower lip.

Hanna turned and, holding firmly to her daughter’s hand, she started to walk. Quickly.

“Never talk to strangers,” she said when they were well away from the man.

“Yes, I know,” Isabella answered with a quiver in her voice.

“What did he say to you?”

“He asked me if I was lost, and I said, ‘No, Mama and Willy and Sasha are in the bushes,’ and he said, ‘Where is your father?’ and I said, ‘He is at the gallery,’ and he said, ‘What is your father’s name?’ and I said, ‘Moses Fleischmann,’ and then he said, ‘Oh, the Jew,’ and I said, ‘Yes, and I am a Jew, too, just like my papa.’ ” The quiver was gone now, her voice filled with confidence and pride.

Hanna stopped and knelt down beside her daughter. “Isabella, you must never say that. You must never say you are a Jew.”

“But I am,” she answered, almost defiantly. “I am a Jew, just like Papa.”

“No,” Hanna said, “you must never say that.”

“I am a Jew.”

“Isabella, please,” Hanna whispered.

“But I am a Jew! I am a Jew, just like Papa!” She was shouting now, and people walking along the path stopped abruptly and stared.

Hanna picked her up and held her close, her little form stiffening the way it did when she was in a fit of temper, every muscle in her body tense. Hanna could feel Isabella’s heart beat rapidly against the ever-increasing beat of her own, and then she felt the child loosen, everything go limp. Isabella was sobbing now, and by the time they got back to Willy and Sasha, who had spread out the picnic lunch for all of them, so was Hanna.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

 

The old woman looked exhausted, and Lauren wondered if she should suggest they continue tomorrow. She knew she wasn’t even close to gathering the information she’d set out to find, and her mind was flipping back and forth regarding the validity of what Isabella had told her about the Kandinsky painting. Lauren’s greatest immediate concern: if she left now, would Mrs. Fletcher extend another invitation?

She’d just given Lauren a summary of Hitler’s first years in power. One moment she was accusing every non-Jew in Germany of being involved. The very next minute she was bent on convincing Lauren that not everyone jumped on the Hitler bandwagon, though there were many who did, she told her, and for many it had nothing to do with hating the Jews. Lauren wondered again what it would have been like in Germany to be a child with a Jewish family on one side, an Aryan family on the other.

She thought of her own child’s mixed heritage. Even in a loving, peaceful environment it presented obstacles. She and Patrick had decided to expose Adam to both families’ traditions, if not yet the full expanse of either religion. They celebrated Christmas as well as the Jewish holidays. Lauren’s family was not particularly religious. Patrick came from a long line of Catholics. His grandmother O’Farrell was especially devout—the prayer-book, rosary-carrying old-fashioned Catholic. When Adam was born, she gave them a medal of a guardian angel to hang on his crib from a blue ribbon. Lauren liked the idea of an angel specially assigned to look after her son.

Once more she thought of Felix and Miriam Rosenthal, the grandparents she never knew. Miriam had died in London, though Lauren had never been told exactly how. Her father was just five when he lost his mother.

“I honestly have no personal memory of any unhappiness,” Isabella said, “though I know times became very difficult for my parents, for Jewish businesses in general, particularly for art dealers who were dealing in the less traditional forms of art. The German Republic was receptive to such art, but let’s just say, well, Hitler and his crew were not terribly open-minded.” She gave off a little snort as she adjusted herself in her chair, straightening her already-regal posture. “Many intellectuals, artists, and writers left Germany for countries more accepting of various forms of self-expression. Many of my parents’ friends and business associates felt neither welcome nor safe in Germany anymore.”

It seemed to Lauren they’d been over this already, and she, too, was feeling emotionally drained. She was about to suggest they meet again the following day when Mrs. Fletcher said, “There was a man who was very friendly with my mother.”