Chapter 53 Moving On
MOVING ON
I wasn’t able to take that bath right away, of course. I needed my clothes first, not to mention my money.
The walk to the bakery was slow, as Dr. Müller coughed the whole way. I said, “I shouldn’t have asked you to come. It’s too cold, and you’re not well enough.”
He waved a feeble hand, clutched his overcoat more tightly around him, and kept walking. “It’s a cold, nothing more. The air hurts my lungs, that’s all.”
“After this,” I said, “I’ll make sure you’re warm every day, and I’ll do the queuing for food, too, so you don’t have to go out in the cold. You can read your books and take your notes in comfort while sipping on peppermint tea.”
I couldn’t say more, for we were at the bakery. I was about to use my key, then realized I no longer had the right. We stood at the side door instead, and I knocked.
Matti opened the door after a short wait. “Merry Christmas!” he said cheerfully, scampering up the stairs again before us. “I’m glad you’re home. There’s been nobody to play marbles with me, and there’s no school, either. We could read my book, maybe. Some of the words are a bit hard.”
I didn’t answer him right away, because I had a hand under Dr. Müller’s elbow to help him up the stairs.
You’ve done your best all along, I reminded myself.
This is not your fault. I told Matti, “I can’t stay and play, I’m afraid.
I’m going to live with Dr. Müller now that your Papa’s home.
” The door to the flat was before us, and I said, “Will you go in and tell your parents that I’ve come for my things? ”
Matti blinked at me in confusion. “But we can just go inside and you can tell them. Why are you going to live with him? Are you getting married to him?”
“What?” Well, this was one I hadn’t anticipated.
“Mama and Papa say that it’s better at our house now, because married people should live together.”
“Oh,” I said. “No, I’m not. Will you go in and tell them, please?”
He shrugged and did it. At least children knew that they didn’t understand things! I, on the other hand, felt that I should understand, but kept being brought up short.
Frau Adelberg came to the door after a moment. Her face crumpled at sight of me, after which she smiled, then looked alarmed. Apparently she was confused, too. “Merry Christmas,” I said. “I’ve come for my things.”
“Oh,” she said. “Merry Christmas.” And stood back to let me in.
She was clutching a dishtowel, while Herr Adelberg was in the best chair, his legs stretched out before him, reading a newspaper beside the little Christmas tree we’d decorated with such cheer.
A picture of the Paterfamilias at home, and he deserved it, didn’t he, after a prison camp?
Frau Adelberg opened her mouth, then closed it, and finally said, “Daisy has come with Dr. Müller. For her things.”
“I have ears,” Herr Adelberg said, but he stood and shook hands with Dr. Müller, who said, “I’m glad to see you home again. I was very sorry to hear about Pieter.”
Herr Adelberg said, “Thank you. And your family? Are they well?” Stiffly, but he said it.
“My wife, alas, is gone,” Dr. Müller said. “But who hasn’t suffered losses in this terrible war? I’ve come to help Fr?ulein Glücksburg collect her belongings, as she’ll be staying with me now.”
“Oh,” Herr Adelberg said.
“In here,” I told Dr. Müller. I wasn’t going to stand around and chat politely, as if I hadn’t just been thrown out of the house.
It took me about two minutes to collect my belongings: a toothbrush, a hairbrush, Joe’s soap and cold cream, the sewing kit I’d taken from Lippert’s belongings, and my few items of clothing, all of them stuffed into my rucksack along with my book.
I could read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn for a bit in the bath, if I was careful not to get it wet, and possibly postpone the crying.
I hated crying so much; it was an acknowledgment to myself of my weakness, and I couldn’t bear to acknowledge that.
I added my pen and the battered exercise books that were my diaries, then checked that the door was locked before lifting the loose floorboard in the corner and removing the one thing remaining: Joe’s tea tin, stuffed with dollars.
The tin went into the rucksack, too, and that was almost everything I owned.
The emeralds were back in my coat lining now, along with my real Kennkarte. One couldn’t be too careful.
Out into the living room again, then, where Frau Adelberg was still standing, clutching her tea towel. I said, “I’ll be taking a few things from the kitchen also.” Firmly, with my head up.
Herr Adelberg stood up. “What things?”
“The things that are mine,” I said. “The sugar. The yeast. The cooking oil, though I’ll leave some for you. Some of the wheat flour. I’ll take some sourdough starter, too.”
Herr Adelberg said, “Now, wait.”
I said, “I rode my bicycle out into the countryside in the cold, or all the way into Nuremberg, and bought them with my money, so you see, this is entirely fair. Except for the sugar and yeast, which I got from Joe.”
Frau Adelberg was twisting the tea towel now. “I’ll come down with you.”
I didn’t make any excuses or offer any more explanations, but went downstairs again, where I quickly assembled my bits and pieces.
I also took the real tea that Joe had given me.
I wasn’t leaving that. Frau Adelberg said, as I packed up, “He doesn’t mean to be unkind.
He doesn’t understand how hard it’s been here, that’s all.
He still thinks things are as he left them, you see.
He’s held to that all this time to get him through.
And after all, this was his bakery and his work. ”
“Yes,” I said. “I know that.” All I wanted was to be gone. I wasn’t going to let myself think about missing Matti.
She said, “And actually, we did want to offer you a job.”
“Oh?” I hardened my heart, but not too much. I needed a job. I’d go out of my mind otherwise, stuck all day in one room with nothing to do but read and the world outside too cold to be an escape.
Without Joe.
She said, “It’s to serve in the bakery, so I’ll have time to resume my other duties. It won’t pay much, I’m afraid, but—”
I said, “That will be fine.” I’d miss the customers otherwise—maybe even Frau Lindemann! Her spats with Frau Neumann lent a certain spice to the day. “You can pay me the same as you have been.”
“Oh,” she said. “But you see, you won’t be baking.”
“Yes,” I said, doing my utmost to keep my voice calm.
“But you were paying me very little, you know—much less than you’d have had to pay anyone else.
I accepted that, and put in my own money for supplies, too, because I was living and eating with you, and so were the Beckers, at least for a period.
I was grateful to you, but my debt must be paid by now. So it will have to be the same amount.”
“I’ll have to discuss it with Emil,” she said with a glance upward.
I didn’t say, You’ve managed to make your decisions so far without him. I was feeling too uncharitable to trust myself. I said, “Well, you can let me know. You could send Matti over to the Professor’s once you decide, perhaps.”
She said, “But how can you really refuse? You’ll have to have a job. Dr. Müller is—” She broke off, for he was standing right there.
“Poor?” he said. “Yes. But Fr?ulein Glücksburg isn’t, you see.” His eyes were mild, his voice gentle. “She’s a rather wealthy young woman, in fact.” Which wasn’t exactly true, but I was going to let it stand.
Frau Adelberg looked at me, then at him, then at me again. Her mouth was open, but no sound came out. I said, “But as I said, I’d miss the customers otherwise. So please—let me know.”
How that day and the next one dragged! I’d worked every day except Sundays since I’d come here, and wasn’t used to having nothing to do.
I also kept replaying everything Joe and I had said, hard as I tried to take the record off the turntable.
While I made potato soup—I knew how to make it now, but wasn’t any happier about eating it—and sourdough pancakes to stretch it into a dinner.
While I took my bath—there wasn’t actually enough hot water to read in there, or even to be comfortable crying, so my time there was short.
While I sat at the table—Dr. Müller had only one easy chair—and tried to read my book.
I did my best to make a plan, to look ahead, but Dr. Müller’s cupboards were very bare and the flat very cold, and being uncomfortable as well as idle didn’t help my mood.
Fuel oil, I told myself firmly. Bacon. Eggs and buttermilk and cheese, too.
Dr. Müller coughed almost continuously, surely partly because he was too badly nourished to fight off any infection.
I’d have to search for those things—well, to search for somebody corrupt enough to sell them to me under the counter—but at least it would give me something to do.
I’d been frightened for so much of the past year, and uncomfortable for almost all of it, but I’m not sure I’d ever been quite as miserable as on that day after Christmas.
Before, I’d always had a goal, and part of me had always thought that there’d be better times around the corner.
Now, as much as I wanted to keep soldiering on, to remember all the people worse off than me, to believe in a better tomorrow when times would be easier and I’d have people to love again, I could barely summon the strength to try.
Things did get a little better when Matti knocked at the door in the afternoon, skipped up the stairs, and told me that Mama and Papa wanted me to come work in the shop tomorrow.
It was something to plan for, at least. And when he opened his rucksack and pulled out his book and the marbles, things got better still.
I’d always known, I reminded myself as he lay on his stomach with his skinny ankles crossed in the air and knocked another marble out of the circle, that there was no future with Joe.
What had I expected? I’d never believed, I reminded myself as I read Rumpelstiltskin to him, both of us sitting on the floor with our backs against the wall, that I’d be able to have children, because no man would want to risk losing them.
It had only been a dream, and every German knew, as we approached 1946, that dreams weren’t reality.
But if I was this sad, how sad was Joe? He felt so deeply, and he saw and heard such terrible things every day. Who would play music with him now, and talk about books, and remind him that there was beauty in the world as well as evil?
Somebody else, that was who. He was a good man, and now he could find somebody worthy of him, who could be all the things I wasn’t. Healthy. Jewish. Not desperate.
Was it awkward going to the bakery those next weeks, too? Well, yes, although the problem wasn’t exactly what I’d expected. I told each customer that Herr Adelberg had returned and was baking, and they expressed their pleasure. They also, however, expressed their disappointment.
“What, still no Pumpernickel?” Frau Neumann exclaimed on the second Friday.
“Not today,” I said, forcing a smile onto my face. But here is a lovely rye bread, you see.” She could hardly help but see, as it was the only variety available.
And no potato bread, either,” Frau Lindemann said. “The loaves so small, too.” For once, they were united. “Your potato bread is always so light.”
“I’m sure Herr Adelberg will be making many delicious varieties of his own invention,” I said. The smile came a little more easily now, because I wasn’t sure at all, was I?
“Are you?” Frau Neumann said. “We’ll see. Will you not be baking at all, then?”
“Not at the moment,” I said cheerily, and smiled some more. Such is the pleasure of Schadenfreude, and as I’d told Joe’s captain, I wasn’t nearly as kind and gentle as my mother. One owns one’s personality, and this was mine.
I was very tired, though, when I walked back to Dr. Müller’s flat at the end of that day, after a visit to the fishmonger and the grocer and another to a certain fuel oil supplier of my acquaintance who was prepared to part with “a bit extra, for a bit extra.” Dr. Müller was still coughing half the night, because he couldn’t seem to shake that cold, but at least he was warm, and his cupboard wasn’t quite so bare.
It would be herring again tonight, but I’d found a quarter of a cabbage to cook with the potatoes.
There was no reason to be tired; I hadn’t been tired before, had I?
At least the fatigue might help me sleep, so I wouldn’t lie awake seeing Joe’s face, hearing Joe’s voice.
Somehow, I’d never really believe he’d leave.
I’d imagined—what? Being able to spend time with him still?
To play music with him and have him smile at me so I could realize with that delicious thrill how much we liked each other?
Romance didn’t work like that, did it? I wasn’t sure; I knew so little of it, but in films and books, at least, when a couple broke up, they didn’t see each other again.
They moved on to somebody else, and never mind that I couldn’t imagine ever finding anybody else like Joe.
I’d discuss A Tree Grows in Brooklyn with Dr. Müller while we ate dinner, though, now that he’d also read it, and …
But when I opened the door of the flat, it was cold and dark, and I didn’t find Dr. Müller. I found only a note.