I took her hands, massaging them between my own. After a moment, Lotty said, “I can’t tell you why the man’s death made Kitty so angry. I don’t remember why we were talking about it, but I was scared that everyone around me would die. We were Jews, we could be thrown from a roof just as that man had been. I think Teddy became my avatar: if I could protect him, I could save my family and myself.”
She spoke slowly, bringing the memory into focus. “We were in my apartment. I don’t know where my brother and all my cousins were; maybe they were there and I’ve forgotten. I was wrapping my bear in pieces of a torn sheet, pretending they were bandages, as if Teddy was the man who’d been thrown from the building, as if I thought I could pretend he wasn’t dead, just injured.”
She stopped again, her eyes still shut. “The other adults came into the room, which ones? Why can’t I remember? My Opa was there, but who else? Kitty became so angry with me over the bear that she grabbed him from me. She threw him down the stairs? No, it was out the window. We got him back, of course, or he wouldn’t have come to London with me.”
“Into the street?” I asked.
“Possibly into a courtyard,” Max suggested. “That’s how all these European apartment blocks are constructed, even in a ghetto like the Leopoldstadt became. The building sits flush with the street, you walk down a hallway that opens into a courtyard. At least in theory, every apartment would have a view of the courtyard. In a big wealthy building it might include a large garden.”
Lotty grimaced. “Our courtyard was nothing like that. Any grass was long gone. It was just cobblestones, and racks where people left their bikes, only then the bikes were all stolen from us. People might even dump garbage out their windows. My grandfather tripped on one of the cobblestones when he helped me get my bear back.”
I think we all held our breath at the same moment, realizing where Felix Herschel had put the document that had come for Martina. The grandfather clock along the far wall sounded ominously loud. One tick, one second, two ticks, four, sixteen, and then decades had passed.
Would the papers Felix Herschel had hidden still be under the cobblestones where he’d left them? And how could I get permission to look?
Lotty roused herself to ask about the other letters, the ones from Martina to Dzornen. “Although now I’m not sure I can bear to know. Max, you read them and tell us the substance.”
Max held them under a lamp, but he still had to squint to read the old script. “The first is about her research, summarizing some articles she’d written that the German science journals wouldn’t accept because of her being a Jew. She wants Dzornen to publish them in American physics journals. The papers show that she is creatively attacking the problem of the unstable nucleus of the U235 atom; if he can publish for her, that may persuade one of the American universities to offer her a position and a visa. ‘Your word carries weight everywhere, Professor. And I will gladly go anywhere, not to such a prestigious university as where you teach. A small laboratory would be sufficient for me.’”
Lotty’s mouth twisted. “She’s assuring him that she won’t be bothering him and Ilse.”
Max nodded. “The next letter is after the Anschluss, but before the war began. The laws are strangling Jews—she mentions your family, Lottchen, that they’ve been forced to move into the Novaragasse apartment complex.
Sofie Herschel manages to be beautiful even while she is starving and wearing the threads of the clothes my mother used to sew her. It’s a mystery to us all, but brings everyone pleasure, especially little K?the, who has every feminine attribute you always say I was born without. I am determined that K?the will survive this privation. Herr Dr. Herschel is saving money to send his grandchildren to London. If you can send us dollars, I can buy a ticket to send K?the with Hugo and little Charlotte.
Max looked at the date again. “You went in June of ’39, yes, Lottchen? This was written in December of ’38, when one could still write a longer letter. The third one is much shorter, in July of ’39, to tell Dzornen that K?the has made it safely to England and has been sent on to Birmingham. A Jewish family there is taking her in.”
“And then the war, and then silence.” Lotty’s voice was harsh.
I wished Jake were here, wished he would play Bach, wished the notes and the strings could reach into the bitter history of the last hundred years and untie the knots that lay at all our centers. Max had the same impulse; he went to his stereo and put in a disc of his own son, Michael, playing Bach’s cello suites.
While the music filled the room, Max asked, “What do you think Herr Herschel hid for Martina? It couldn’t be money: that would have been confiscated instantly before the letter was ever delivered. And if it had been a visa—I don’t know, but I expect your grandparents would have used it.” Max looked at Lotty.