Page 135 of Hell to Pay
“Uh-huh,” the colonel said. “Physical exam OK, I see. Seriously undernourished, but isn’t everybody? Mental health passed OK, too. Character—well, we don’t know, do we? You’re not even from Nuremberg. You could be anybody, couldn’t you?” The eyebrows were beetling my way again.
“I could be,” I said, “but I’m not. The baker’s family where I work can vouch for me.” Well, Frau Adelberg would, anyway. Herr Adelberg had thawed considerably, but still, there was Joe.
“I can’t conduct any kind of real interview under these circumstances,” the colonel said. “You have no family, very little money”—we hadn’t told him about the parure; too easy to believe I’d stolen it—“and no prospects. How am Isupposed to know whether you actually want to marry this particular man, or just an American? Even your high-school education ended with the bombing of Dresden.” He spread out his two hands, palm up. “You’re a very pretty girl, but?—”
“Excuse me,” I said, “but I do have prospects. I have a job, and a flat of my own. I’m the last thing from desperate. I’m a baker—I did all the baking until my employer returned from a prison camp last year—and I speak English and French and some Italian and am in fact well educated. I also play the piano very well. I can give lessons, I can bake …” I trailed off, because we’d reached the end of the list.
“And where is being a wife and mother in there?” the colonel asked.
“That,” I said firmly, “is at the top.” Well, the “wife” part, anyway. “But Joe will be attending university. I intend to get a job and support him.”
“Good luck with that,” the colonel said, “with the men all back from war. Well, I can’t make this decision for you, Stark, but I will say this. I need more evidence of character to approve this marriage. Whether she graduated or not, this girl is clearly educated far beyond anything a normal German girl would be. She’s obviously the daughter of somebody high up.Howhigh up?”
I said, “My father was a wealthy Saxon landowner.” Which was true.
“And not a Nazi,” the colonel said flatly. “Or in the military. Like, as far as I know, virtually noGerman in those circumstances.”
I was stuck. I couldn’t show him my parents’ photograph. My father was in military uniform in it, and wouldn’t that merely make things worse? Also, he was too recognizable. A high-ranking German man from Dresden with those burns? How desirable would a princess be to the democratic Americans,and how could I change my story now? Then I’dreallyappear unreliable.
I kept trying. “As I’ve told you, my father hated the Nazis. So did my mother. He nearly paid the highest price for it. He was hiding a Jewish family when we were bombed! Is that the act of a Nazi?”
“Of which you have no proof,” the colonel said. “Sorry, Stark. Unless you can dredge up more than this …” He shrugged and handed the documents back. “I can’t approve this. We don’t know enough about her.”
Outside the office, Joe said, “Right.” He ran a hand through his hair, which was longer now, and yes, it did curl. “So I finish my tour, get my discharge, go home, then come right back to marry you. Or send for you, I guess. I hate it, especially with the state the country’s in now, but …”
“Let me try something else first,” I said.
“What? You heard him, Marguerite. And once you put the princess thing out there, there’ll be no going back.”
“No,” I said. “Go back to work, and I’ll … I’ll see you tomorrow. If this doesn’t work, we’ll do the princess thing, though I’d have to admit I lied, and … No. Let me try it this way. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Twenty-four hours later, Joe and I were sitting in the same two chairs. I was wearing my other dress, the green one, under the cardigan, but I doubted the colonel noticed, because he was staring at the person sitting in thethirdchair. Who was Dr. Becker.
The colonel looked at Dr. Becker’s documents, then back at him. “You came all the way from Föhrenwald for this?”
“I did,” Dr. Becker said. “Fräulein Glücksburg is important tome, and after she traveled all the way to find me, the least I could do was travel back with her. It didn’t sound like a letter would do.” He was looking younger now, as if the clock had been turned back, and much less starved. His hair was well cut, the white at the temples only lending him distinction, and despite his still-shabby clothing, the air of calm authority I remembered from my childhood had returned, like a man putting on a discarded cloak. And for the first time since I’d known him, he was wearing a yarmulke—a Jewish head covering. Joe was translating simultaneously; he was really very good.
“So her father actually didhide Jews,” the colonel said. “Well, that’sa first. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that story.”
“Probably almost as many times as I have,” Dr. Becker said.
“I’m sure,” the colonel said. “So—father not a Nazi, and not a soldier, either.”
“On the contrary,” Dr. Becker said, “he was a most heroic airman in the Great War, and was awarded the Blue Max. He was very badly burned, though. I’m a burn specialist, but I treated not only the—not only Fräulein Glücksburg’s father, but the whole household, until the end. Her parents refused to discharge me as the law ordered, even at great risk to themselves. It’s thanks to them that we survived, for besides hiding us when we werein extremis, they gave us food and more throughout those years. They helped others, too, to my certain knowledge.”
“And her health?” the colonel asked.
“Oh, she’s quite strong. She always has been, and I’ve known her from a small child. Mentally, too. Really a most extraordinary young woman.” Dr. Becker’s gaze was blandness itself. He’d told me yesterday on the train, “But of course I won’t be bothered by that deception. Why should I be? If you want somebody to follow the orders of the government without question, don’t ask a German Jew in 1946.”
“Just take me through it again,” the colonel said. “The bombing, and how you got out.”
Dr. Becker plunged in. The deaths of my parents and the servants. His terror of the Gestapo, and switching coats to hide the outline of the star. The ride in the back of the truck to the airport. The months of tramping from town to town, and the temporary reprieve outside Bayreuth. The desperate drive in the wagon in the dead of night, hiding under the hay, after his identity had been revealed. Our hunger, our lack of funds, and Gerhardt’s decline. “If Fräulein Glücksburg hadn’t been able to bake,” he said, “I believe my son would have starved. She saved our lives, and then she saved Staff Sergeant Stark’s. She put herself at great risk to do so—twice. Running out into the street with both sides shooting? Walking all the way to the camp to find help for him? However much you require of applicants for citizenship, she’s surely met that requirement. She queued for hours to get us help here in Nuremberg, and wouldn’t take no for an answer. She went with us to Munich to make sure we got to Föhrenwald, and we needed her assistance, because once again, it was extremely difficult. She persisted, though, until she got results. So, yes. If you wish a character reference, I offer you mine. Without reservation.”
I could have kissed him.
“Andthenyou got married and lived happily ever after,” Ashleigh said. “What a bureaucratic nightmare.”
“No,” I said. “Then we waited three months, for there was a mandatory waiting period. Until, on the seventh of March, it was over, and we married. On the one hand, I was actually legally of age now, which made Joe feel better. On the other hand—oh, it was hard to wait.”
