The Puzzle King, page 24
Frederick, concerned that she’d been gone too long, went outside and found her lying in the snow. She was awake but confused and unsure of where she was. “What happened?” he cried. She told him about the tree and the house. “Then I felt as if the inside of me was emptying and I couldn’t stop it. I was disappearing. That must be when I fainted.”
He carried her inside and took off her wet clothes. He tucked her in under the quilt and made her some tea. When he came back to her, he sat at the foot of her bed, head in hands, and listened as she talked.
“I’m so frightened,” she said. “Nothing seems real to me.”
He rubbed the little mound on the quilt that was covering her feet. “My poor, scared Margotschön. Everything is real. No one is disappearing.”
“Everyone is disappearing,” she shouted. “Gilda. My mother. Edith. Now Ernst Licht. Everyone.”
He shook his head. “This is my fault. I should have never brought my worries into this house. You are safe here, I promise you this. You are safe with me.”
“Frederick, who is safe with anybody?”
“I could kick myself for telling you about Ernst. It’s one of those things that happens, an isolated incident, I’m certain.” But in his heart Frederick knew that in these times, in this place, being certain was nothing to count on.
BETWEEN HER WORK at Schweriner and the time she spent with Karl, Seema rarely saw Frederick and Margot. Not that she’d keep their company even if she had more time. She felt sorry for Frederick. He had his hands full with Margot. And Margot, so strange and otherworldly. Seema had really tried with Margot. Taken her shopping, bought her nice clothes. Even got her a strand of pearls with her Schweriner discount two Christmases ago, thinking, mistakenly, that pretty jewelry would give her a reason to dress up and get out of the house. But Margot being Margot, she kept the pearls in the gift box wrapped in the original paper and put them somewhere for safekeeping, probably with all the other presents Seema had given her. For Pete’s sake, there was only so much she could do for Margot.
If Edith were home, that would be different. Seema would be over there all the time trading gossip, sharing makeup and whatnot. She couldn’t blame Edith for going back to the gymnasium as an assistant to the physical education teacher. If she were home, she’d be stuck caring for her mother. She was sure Edith had better things to do. But now that she’d introduced her to Werner Cohn, maybe Edith would find reason to come home more often.
She knew Werner and Edith would hit it off. He was no Clark Gable, but he was cute in an impish way, though less comfortable in his skin than Edith. Seema had guessed that he would find her liveliness and ease with the world appealing. Besides, since his father was one of the owners of Schweriner, Werner Cohn had money, and God knows Edith could use some of that. After their second date, Seema had asked Edith how it had gone. “He’s funny,” said Edith. “Different than other Jewish boys. He’s more remote, harder to get to know.” After their third date, Seema had asked if he’d kissed her, and Edith got all coy and giggly. “You’re getting as bad as your boyfriend with all your questions. I don’t have to answer everything you ask me,” she said. “You don’t have to answer anything,” said Seema, laughing. “Your face tells me what I need to know. Remember the first time we met we went to see all those naked boys at the Metropolitan Museum of Art? How you ogled them and turned all pink, just like you’re doing now.”
“Aunt Seema,” laughed Edith. “Just because your imagination is in the gutter doesn’t mean the rest of us live down there with you.”
“Maybe not,” said Seema. “But tell me, how does Werner stack up next to those marble fellas at the museum?”
Seema enjoyed teasing Edith, something she couldn’t do with her sisters. Even in her letters, Flora was so confident and combative; it was just no fun. And Margot? Well, what was the point? But she and Edith could go at each other day and night, both knowing that their vulnerabilities and secrets were off limits. When Karl pointed out to Seema that she had strong maternal instincts toward Edith, she laughed at him and said, “I wouldn’t know a maternal instinct if it socked me in the eye.”
“Say what you will,” Karl had answered. “But you would lay down your life for that girl.”
He was a wise man. Maybe that came from being older. In his late fifties, he was more than a decade older than she was. His perceptiveness was one of the things Seema found intriguing about him. That was his job, of course, seeing through people and second-guessing their motivations. As a newspaperman, he loved a good story, no matter how mundane or bizarre. When there was a fire at the zoo, or an infant was born with all of its teeth in its mouth, Karl was the first one there, pencil and notebook in hand. But he was also known as an intrepid reporter, unafraid to ask the provocative questions. His most famous interview had been with the actress Marlene Dietrich right after the movie Der blaue Engel came out in 1930. In one scene, Dietrich, who played a lusty cabaret performer, leaned back on a barrel, lifted her right leg, and wrapped her hands around her knee, exposing her garter-belted stockings. Then she sang, “Falling in Love Again.” It was the most talked about scene in the film, and when Karl had asked, “Miss Dietrich, would it be fair to say that your beautiful legs are actually the star of this movie?” She answered, “Darling, the legs aren’t so beautiful, I just know what to do with them.” It made news from Berlin to Los Angeles.
That was the Karl who Seema had fallen in love with: funny, curious, charming. But lately he was different. More serious. Cautious even. On New Year’s Eve they went to see prima donna Maria Mueller perform “Tannhauser” at the State Opera. Just before the intermission, Seema felt a draft on her shoulders and whispered to Karl, “All I’m wearing is this silk chemise. Not much underneath it. Mind if I borrow your jacket?” Karl kissed her neck and ran his hand down her back. “You certainly dressed lightly for a winter night,” he whispered. She blew softly in his ear before murmuring back, “I didn’t dress for a winter night, I dressed for a night with you.” Flushed with the thought of what they would do after the opera, Karl wrapped his jacket around her shoulders and said, “This should keep you warm until then.” During intermission, when he went to the men’s room, she reached into his pocket to borrow his handkerchief and found the oddest thing. It was a flyer with a picture of Hitler and, underneath, the words “Gentle Hitler.” It made Seema laugh. When Karl came back to his seat, she showed it to him and joked: “So is our esteemed leader now a contestant in the Miss Germany beauty pageant?”
Karl snatched the flyer from her hand, folded it carefully, and stuck it back in his coat pocket. “That’s not funny,” he said.
“But it is funny,” she insisted. “A short ugly man competing for Miss Germany? It’s very funny.”
Karl whispered in fragments. “It’s part of a national campaign. The German government. The Nobel Peace Prize.”
“The Nobel Peace Prize?” Seema said in a startled voice. “Hitler?”
“Shh,” urged Karl. “Do you want the whole theater to hear you? Yes, the handout is part of the Nazi effort to groom Hitler for the Nobel Prize.”
“Hitler and the Nobel Peace Prize,” said Seema in a low voice. “Now that is really funny.”
“Enough,” snapped Karl, as the lights dimmed and the orchestra began to warm up. “We’ll discuss this later.”
That night, when they got back to the hotel room, they seemed to have left the incident behind them. Karl was far more interested in what Seema wasn’t wearing under her chemise and had his hands about her body before the door to their room had even closed behind them. He cupped his hands underneath her dress and carried her to the bed. He was hard and started to put himself inside her. “Wait,” she cried and turned on her stomach, tucking her knees beneath her like a crouched animal. “Now.”
Karl and Seema were proud of the pleasure they could give each other, and short of inflicting real pain, there were few things they wouldn’t try or ask for. Their lovemaking nourished and surprised them, and within its life dwelled their secrets and trust.
When they were finished, Seema lay with her head on his belly. “Why were you such a grouch tonight?” she asked, stroking the hair on his chest.
“I wasn’t a grouch.”
“Well, you weren’t very nice.”
“Oh really. Judging from the sounds you were making five minutes ago, I’d say I was very nice.”
“I don’t mean that,” she said. “I mean in the theater. About the flyer.”
“Seema,” he’d said, his voice turning serious, “there are some things even you can’t joke about.”
“I can joke about anything,” she’d said, tickling his stomach, trying to sound lighthearted.
“I know you can. And you do. But sometimes it’s not appropriate.”
“Oh Karl, even you must think this business about Hitler and the Nobel Prize is funny.”
“You know, Miss Wisenheimer, we need to talk. Being a Jewess is becoming risky business around here. I must ask if you’ve given any thought to going back to America?”
“Why on earth would I go back?” She folded her arms across her chest. “I am a German woman in love with a German man. There’s nothing for me in America. I’m staying right here.”
“Come now, don’t play naive with me. You know exactly what I’m talking about. Surely it’s occurred to you.”
“No, it really hasn’t. This is my home. I belong here. Why should I leave?”
“Because,” Karl said, sitting up in bed so abruptly it caused her head to drop onto the mattress. “This is not the place to be if your name is Seema Glass née Seema Grossman and you have a nose like yours. That’s why.”
She propped herself up on her elbows and stared up at him. “Are you trying to get rid of me? Is that what this is about?”
“Seema, don’t be an idiot. I know you hate politics and you do your best to ignore what’s going on. But look around you. Surely you notice all the Brownshirts in Berlin, the fact that Jewish stores are closing every day? I love you, but this is not a safe place for you. I can’t help you.”
Now it was Seema’s turn to sit upright. “Help me? I never asked you to help me with anything. I’m staying and that’s that.”
Karl looked at his watch. His startling blue eyes were hazy now and the gray pouches under his eyes sagged into his cheeks. “You are very headstrong and I am very weary. It’s well after three and I have to be back at the paper tomorrow afternoon. We’ll continue this conversation at another time.” He held open an arm so she could lie next to him. “Come, let’s get some rest.” She curled up on her side and settled into the place just below his shoulder blade, which seemed to have been scooped out just for her. From there she could feel his heart beat.
In the rift between wakefulness and sleep, she’d become momentarily stranded on the paradox of their conversation. “You say I’m unsafe, yet right now I am safer than I have ever been.” She tried saying the words out loud, but sleep stole over her before she could.
Kaiserslautern: Spring 1935
When it became clear that Seema was not going to leave Germany, Karl finally dropped the subject. It wasn’t until the first warm day in early March that it entered their conversation again. They were sitting at a corner table in the café near his house, drinking cognac, and leaning into each other, their heads almost touching. Seema was telling Karl about a woman who had come into the store and demanded to see a bracelet that was so expensive that the store guard had to stand by as Seema showed it to her. Somewhere in the language of diamonds and platinum, Karl’s attention turned to the slip of the cross around her neck. He thought about how it fell onto one of her breasts when she slept and how sometimes, when they made love, it would dig into him like the nippy foot of a crab.
He smiled and would have liked to take her breast in his hand just then. Instead, he tugged gently on the cross as she continued on about carat weight and marquise cuts.
Then he interrupted her. “You ought to think about converting.”
She screwed up her face as if she couldn’t hear him. “Converting? To what?”
“You’d be a perfect Catholic.” He continued to play with her cross. “You already have the equipment.”
“Why would I convert from one religion I don’t believe in to another?” she asked, raising the cognac to her lips.
“Because it could save your goddamned life,” he said, jerking the cross so hard she dropped her glass, causing the drink to dribble down her chin and splash onto her yellow silk blouse.
“Oh no, we’re not going to talk about that again!” she said, using her napkin to dab up the mess. “Shit. This is a brand-new blouse.”
“Oh yes, we are going to talk about that again,” he said, his chin jutting forward.
When Karl got angry, his voice had the timbre of two knife blades rubbed together. Like a good reporter, he stayed focused on his subject for as long as he needed to, and by the end of that long liquory night, the combination wore Seema down.
“So I’ll convert,” she said finally. “It’s no big deal. And maybe then we could stop talking about it.”
“That’s my sweet shiksa frau,” he said, kissing her. “I promise from now on our exchanges will be nothing but scintillating.”
Karl made all the arrangements and got the appropriate papers signed. She never got the cognac stain out of her blouse. Instead, she kept it hanging in her closet as a souvenir. They called it her christening gown.
FOUR WEEKS LATER, on an early afternoon in April, Seema decided to take her lunch outside where the tulips and daffodils had lit up the exhibition grounds. On this day, when every tree bud held a promise and the air was sweet with spring, deciding which bench to settle on or whether to sit facing the sun was the most grueling demand Seema made on her imagination. So she ignored the throng of people that swept past her. Midday shoppers, she assumed. But they moved so fast and made so much noise with their jeering and screaming. That and the bursts of guttural demands she could hear in the distance: Mach schnell. Lauter singen! Should she ignore the commotion and continue on to the exhibition grounds? There was something about those people: their rabid eyes, their contorted faces. They frightened her, yet she felt compelled to move with them. At first she walked, faster and faster until before she knew it, she, too, was running. She strained to catch her breath. Her heart drummed and a cold fear trickled through her. When they got to Lutherstrasse, she heard people singing the “Happy Birthday” song. Only it had no melody. It was being shouted in the imperative. The lyrics were different. She sorted them out.
Happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday, happy birthday,
Happy birthday, dirty Jew.
Seema let herself get pushed forward until she saw them. Six men, middle-aged and older. She recognized one of them as a dentist who had come into Schweriner a few months ago to buy his wife an opal ring for her fiftieth birthday. The men wore conical party hats with ruffles around the bottom and elastic bands under their chins. She thought of how the dentist had told her that when his wife saw the way the light refracted off the ring in the window of Schweriner, she said it looked to her like a globe. The party hats were green and purple and had red pompoms on their pointy tops. They were too small for the men and were cocked in crazy angles on their heads. She remembered the dentist saying that the ring was the perfect present for his wife because she was the world to him. The men held hands and danced in a circle while soldiers with guns stuck into their belts yelled at them to sing louder, dance faster. Seema put her hands over her ears and squeezed her eyes shut after one of the soldiers started shooting at their feet. Still, she could hear the other soldiers laughing. The dentist had told her that all three of his children were grown and lived in Kaiserslautern. The men were dancing and singing as fast and loud as they could. Two looked as if they might collapse. The other four clasped their hands tightly and nearly dragged them around the circle. There were more gunshots and there was more singing and then one body fell and then another and another and another and another and another until the men lay in the street, the party hats swimming in blood. Seema remembered the picture the dentist had shown her of his five grandchildren. The soldiers urged the crowd to go home. The show is over, one shouted, waving his gun. Then the soldiers dispersed, but not before a few of them bent over the fresh corpses, picking off their jewelry and searching their pockets for money.
Seema ran back to Schweriner and upstairs to the ladies room. She hadn’t eaten lunch yet, and had only a piece of bread and butter for breakfast, yet she threw up as if she’d been feasting all morning. Small pieces of yellow vomit fell onto her shoes and the floor, and all around her was the sour smell. Her skin was clammy, and she was shivering and felt as if her legs might give way. The inside of her mouth tasted bitter and she held onto the walls of the bathroom stall for support. She thought about the lady with the opal ring and the man who had given it to her and how she was the world to him. It made her want to retch again, but there was nothing left.
For the first time since she’d worked at Schweriner, Seema went home sick in the middle of the day. Frau Schultz saw her come through the door. “You look terrible,” she said, taking Seema’s arm. “You’re pale and shaky. Come, let’s get you to bed.” Seema let herself lean on the old woman’s arm. She studied Seema’s face “Oh my dear, you’re crying. What is it?”
“It’s nothing,” Seema lied, falling onto her bed. “I must have the grippe.” She would never tell Frau Schultz what she had seen. She would never tell anybody.
