Chapter 52 And Then There’s the Truth #3
“The gold is twenty-two carats,” I said.
“The emeralds are nearly priceless, especially the center one.” Nearly an inch long and almost as wide at the bottom, but even the emeralds that formed the centers of the daisy-chain necklace were the size of my thumbnail, and the diamonds were extraordinary.
“I have this, but I can’t sell it. Who could I find who could afford to give me even a tenth of its worth?
I have enough money anyway, as I said, just nothing to spend it on.
I can’t even buy a ticket on a ship with it, for who wants a German émigré now?
As for marrying me, even before you knew of my age and parentage, how could you suggest such a thing?
If my parents would have balked at my marrying you—a non-Catholic, a commoner, and an American, none of which matters to me, but would surely have mattered to them—what would your parents think about you marrying me?
A Gentile, and a German? Maybe even worse, one who probably wouldn’t even be able to give you a child, for fear of losing it?
I could never have said yes to that. It feels too bad to lose one’s family. How could I have hurt you like that?”
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t seem to have a clue what there was to say, so I went on.
“I had a silly idea, at the beginning, of appealing to the King and Queen in England and seeking their help to emigrate, but if the Royal Family didn’t help the Tsar and Tsarina and their children, why would they help me, when our family connection is less close and my need less dire? ”
“Wait, what?” Joe asked. “What do the Romanovs have to do with it?”
“Do you really want to know?” I asked. “Is that the most important question right now?”
“Well, yes,” he said, “I really want to know. I’m trying to figure out what to think here.”
I sighed. “Here’s the story, then. My mother told me, for she remembered it.
When the Romanov family were being held in that cellar in Siberia and things had begun to look very black, the Tsarina wrote in desperation to her cousin the King, begging for asylum.
The King and Queen refused, although they must have known what it would mean; the Russian aristocracy was being slaughtered wholesale by then, at least those who hadn’t managed to flee the country.
But the Tsarina was German by birth, like me, and the Great War was still being fought.
How could the King remind the English people of his German connections at such a delicate moment?
He also feared that the presence of the Romanovs would ignite anti-monarchist feeling in England—the Russian royals were, after all, tyrants.
” I shrugged. “You can see how it was. Royals must be practical, for ruling is political always. So the King refused asylum, and the family were shot. As for a yet more distant relation, after a war in which the Germans inflicted so much harm on the English? No, that’s clearly not an option.
I could go to my cousins here in Bavaria, but …
” I spread my hands. “What I told your captain was true. They didn’t serve in the Wehrmacht, because Hitler didn’t trust them enough for that.
Many did serve, however, in the SS, which, oddly, was allowed to accept them.
There’s an heir to the Wittelsbach dynasty who was mentioned in connection with me now and again before the war, but he’s not going to want me now, not with my father’s unreliability and my medical condition.
I have no desire to marry or even be housed by any SS or Nazi, no matter what they say now about their participation.
In any case, I’m not interested in living on anyone’s charity.
So here we are again, at the question of working for the Americans with such a background.
If you think I can tell your captain all this and have it work out, though … perhaps?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Joe asked. “Why, when I’ve told you all about my family?”
“I don’t know. Because I was used to keeping this secret? Because I feared being put on a train back to Saxony?”
“Or because you were afraid I’d steal your jewels.” Joe’s face was troubled, and more set than I’d ever seen it.
“No,” I said. “Of course not. With Frau Adelberg, yes, I was afraid she would—not steal my things, but talk? Oh, yes, I was afraid of that. And at the beginning, with you, of course I was cautious. After that, I would have had to explain all this, all my lies, and I was afraid—” My voice trembled for the first time.
“That you wouldn’t … that you wouldn’t want to be with me if you knew my age.
And that I’d lied, but especially my age.
But seventeen isn’t too young to be a translator, is it? ”
“You haven’t even finished high school,” Joe said.
“No,” I said. “Not even close. But I’ve read a great deal more now,” I tried to joke, “thanks to you and Dr. Müller. And I was very well educated, you know. Frau Adelberg has shown me how to do the accounts, too, which will be useful if I can get another position in a shop. If there’s ever anything to sell and anyone with money to buy it, that is.
I don’t know about things like chemistry, true, but I can manage mathematics well enough, and my knowledge of European history is excellent.
I can read music, and I speak French and English and—”
Joe had a hand up, and I trailed off. Then, somehow, I didn’t, because I was saying, “So you don’t even want to hear. You say you care about me, and you won’t even listen?”
He had a hand in his hair. It was a bit longer now, I thought irrelevantly, and beginning to curl. “I want to,” he said. “I just— I need some time to think.”
Dr. Müller said, “We must get your money out of that house, Daisy, before Herr Adelberg bars the door to you.” The first time he’d ever called me by my Christian name.
“Oh,” I said. “Yes. Thank you. I’ll go—” I stood up on shaking legs. “I’ll go do that now. But my bicycle is still in the back of Joe’s Jeep.”
“Perhaps Staff Sergeant Stark will help us put it around the back,” Dr. Müller said, standing up himself. “Much safer there. I’d do it myself, but I’m not feeling quite the thing today.”
“And I can really stay here?” I wanted to talk to Joe more, but I couldn’t think what to say.
His silence hurt me like a blow. How had I got all this so wrong?
“I could take care of you, if you’re not well,” I hastened to add.
“I can buy fuel oil and make it warmer in here. That, I know how to get. Sausage, too, and one can still get potatoes in the shop, and bread if Herr Adelberg is baking it, so we won’t starve.
Just until I find another place to stay.
I don’t need a job right now, I suppose, though I’d like one, but I’ll try to stay out of your way.
You’re working on your book, and …” I trailed off, because there was only so long I could babble.
Dr. Müller said, “You won’t be the least bit of trouble. I’ll be grateful for the company. Will you help with the bicycle, Staff Sergeant?” His tone was extremely formal and polite.
Joe said, “Of course.” He hesitated, looked at me, looked at Dr. Müller. “I’d help you get the money, but …”
“But you wouldn’t be welcome,” I said. “And you have no obligation to me. Of course not.” It was all I could do to form the words.
Joe said, “I need to think about this. I need to …” He ran his hand through his hair again.
“Yes,” I said, holding myself very straight. “I understand.” I needed to be alone so I could cry, but how could I even do that?
A bath. A bath would be good. I’d warm up in a bath, and I could cry there, too. But why should I even cry? I had a place to stay. I had money. I could buy food. I could even help Dr. Müller. I wasn’t alone. I was not alone.
I was, in fact, fine, and better off than so many others. I was shaking now, and I was sad, but I’d been sad before, and frightened, too, and I’d survived. No matter what, I’d survived, and I could keep on doing it.
I would be fine.