Page 3 of Hell to Pay
“I don’t have to know all of that,” Ben said. “Tante Marguerite can read the signs, and I can figure out the rest. I’m notnine.”
Alix hesitated a moment, then said, “Fine. Oh—do you want me to help you find a café first?”
Ben leaned forward and struck his forehead with his palm twice, which made me laugh.“No,”he said. “I’m fifteen, and Tante Marguerite is probably old enough to find a café by herself too. Go. Leave.”
“I open my mouth,” Alix said, “and my mother comes out. I can’t believe it. Save me, Sebastian.”
“You’ve got it,” he said. “Let’s go.” And shoved off with his mountain of luggage—a good third of which, I’m sorry to say, was mine—stowed on the cart. Sebastian was a good loader, too. Alix would have thrown all of it on there in a hurry, and half our bags would have slid off by now. I wasn’t going to remark on that, but I could still think it.
“Finally,”Ben said when they’d gone. “Except that I realize I don’t actually know where the café is, and I’m not supposed to drag you all over and wear you out. That’s the big concern, if you want to know, that we’ll wear you out. Alix is going to ask a hundred times. You should probably work out a hand signal with her so you don’t lose it and kill her the forty-second time she does it. Hang on, I’m looking up the café thing.”
“Over there,” I said. “To the right. I’ll take your arm, if I may. I should have worn my walking shoes.”
“How come you didn’t?” Ben asked as we headed through the well-behaved crowds, queueing as if they’d been born to it, which they had. “Most people dress worse when they travel, not, like, way better than usual. Oh—if that’s way better than usual for you. I’ve only seen you at home. It seems fancy to me, anyway.”
“In my day,” I said, “I would have worn a hat and gloves even to go downtown, and worst of all, stockings and a girdle.How one suffered. Even I, with the physique of a starving bird, had to wear the girdle, because to do otherwise would have been shockingly immodest. Girdles, hats, gloves, and dresses that had to be ironed. How much of life was consumed by all of that, especially without a maid or modern appliances.”
“What’s a girdle?” Ben asked.
“Goodness,” I said, “you don’t know? American women are surprisingly prudish, or they used to be. One had to wear the girdle, but one could never mention the girdle. It was an elastic undergarment. Usually white, possibly so it could never be thought of as sexual or attractive. It held in one’s stomach, rear, and thighs, you see, tightly enough for discomfort. Some women wore a garment that was all things in one: brassiere and girdle. Most uncomfortable in summer. Your stockings fastened to the straps that hung down from the girdle.”
“Like a garter belt?” Ben’s eyes had gone bigger. “I’ve heard ofthat.”
“Not nearly as attractive as that,” I said. “You can look it up once we’re sitting down, if you like. Everyone does that now, I’ve noticed. As soon as they sit down, they begin looking things up. But as to why I dressed a bit more nicely than you think necessary—because one is treated better when one dresses better.” I touched the ancient gold Hermès silk scarf I’d draped across one shoulder, its vibrant color gleaming against my deep purple jacket, and adjusted my purple handbag on my arm. “And it’s nice to have something to dress up for, isn’t it?”
“I guess,” Ben said, extremely doubtfully. “Except people don’t care that much how you dress. Wouldn’t that be, like, really shallow?”
“Possibly shallow,” I said, “and also real, especially as an American in, say, Germany. One does not dress for the beachor for a hiking trip in the mountains when one is in the city, unless Europe has altered completely. Ah. Here we are. This will be fine. There’s an empty table there, in the corner.”
Ben read the sign.“Haferkater.Is that, like, bakery?”
“No,” I said. “It means ‘Oat Hangover.’ I suspect they specialize in oats.”
“A restaurant for oatmeal,” Ben said. “That’s horrible. Why? Who says, ‘You know what I feel like going out for today? Oatmeal!’” He steered me toward the table, though, and I sat down gratefully. I definitely should have worn the ugly walking shoes, the ones that screamed “Old lady!” and offended my every sensibility. I’d bought them exactly for moments like this, and yet I couldn’t bring myself to wear them. Sebastian would be hauling those ugly shoes through half of Dresden, but then, that was probably good football conditioning. I wasn’t going to worry about it.
“Go pick up a menu,” I said, “and I’ll translate for you so you can order for us at the counter. Say, ‘Die Speisekarte, bitte’for the menu.”
“Everybody on the train spoke English, it seemed like,” Ben said. “Won’t they speak it here too?”
“Yes,” I said, “if you prefer to be an American tourist who doesn’t bother even to learn to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ because you believe the United States rules over all. An attitude that was not so popular in Germany, the last time I was here.”
“I was just asking,” Ben said. “Also, I’m Canadian. OK, tell me how to say the menu thing again. But I’m still not excited about oats.”
“There will likely be an option with chocolate,” I said. “In Germany, there’s always an option with chocolate. Oats, Nutella, and banana seem likely. Go and see.”
3
RETURN OF THE NATIVE
How does one know one is in one’s home country? The language helps, of course. I hadn’t spoken German much in decades, but here it was all around me, as it had been since we’d landed the previous day. The neatness and efficiency of the Frankfurt Customs officials, too, and the same tightening in my throat as I’d handed over my passport, with its reassuringly dark-blue cover, its golden eagle, and the words beneath.United States of America.How much safer I’d felt, all those years ago, once I’d had that little book in my hand.
Yesterday, the official had glanced at it, then at me, and asked, “You were born in Dresden?”
“Yes,” I’d answered, unable to get out more than that. I’d never have shared it, but there it was, printed beside my photo.Birthplace: Dresden, Germany.
“Welcome home,” he’d said, still in English, and handed back the blue booklet. And that was that. No roiling of the stomach, no held breath that you had to try to conceal so they wouldn’t suspect, no hostile, suspicious surveillance of my papers, no suggestion that I was not the person listed herein.
Although I was not. Did my passport sayMarguerite von Sachsen Stark,an abbreviated version of my full name?No, and neither did any other of my documents. They all saidMarguerite Glücksburg Stark,because when I’d first applied for the passport, I’d been wary of owning more than that small part of my names and titles. I wasn’t Marguerite Anastasia Alexandrina von Sachsen und Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg anymore, the daughter of a King of Saxony and the princess of yet another state, and I hadn’t been since I was sixteen years old. I was Marguerite Stark, even if I had to lie to make that so.
