Chapter 54 With You
WITH YOU
The note was from Joe. I’d barely registered his looping, slightly messy handwriting when I was hit with the actual message.
I took the Professor to the hospital in Nuremberg. He was in a bad way. I’ll come back for you. Do not ride over here.
Joe
You can imagine with what anxiety I waited out the next hours. I didn’t even cook the potatoes and cabbage, because I expected Joe at any minute. I tried to read, but couldn’t do it.
The Professor had been my responsibility.
Why hadn’t I insisted that he allow me to find a doctor?
Or why hadn’t I found one without his permission?
Was he going to be all right? Was he even still alive?
Why hadn’t Joe come back? Joe always kept his word, so how bad was Dr. Müller if Joe couldn’t leave him?
Around and around the thoughts went, until I was pacing the little flat like an obsessive.
I was dimly aware that I was cold and hungry, but I couldn’t focus enough to do anything about it. I could only pace.
When the knock at the door came, I nearly sobbed with relief as I flew to it and turned the handle.
It was Joe, looking so solid in his Army greatcoat. My anxious eyes searched his face, and he smiled a tired smile and said, “He’s still alive, anyway.”
That was it. I burst into tears, and somehow, I was in Joe’s arms. Just like that Christmas morning in the cold, he was holding me, murmuring words I barely caught, because I was crying too hard for that.
I’d thought, when day after day had gone by and I still hadn’t cried, that I must be getting over him. Now, when the dam had burst, I knew it wasn’t true. He was here, and that was almost everything.
I have no idea how long it was before he had me sitting at the little table and was plugging in the electric fire and making me a cup of tea. I’d done my best to wash up but knew I still looked dreadful, and I couldn’t care. I said, “What— how— What’s wrong with him?” The first words I’d managed.
“Heart,” Joe said, putting the cup before me and sitting down. .
“Oh, no,” I said. “He had a cough, but he said it was just a cold. I wanted him to let me get a doctor, but he said—”
Joe had my hand now. “He was already too sick, Marguerite.” His voice was gentle.
“His heart probably hasn’t pumped as well as it should for years, and now, the fluid has built up in his lungs.
They can give him some medications if he recovers and make him more comfortable, but they can’t fix the problem. ”
I can’t describe the devastation of my own heart. I couldn’t even think of anything to say. The tears were welling again, and Joe said, “He’s seventy-two years old, and I’m guessing he hasn’t had enough to eat for a long time.”
“It’s the war,” I said. “Stupid Hitler and this stupid war.” I was beating my thigh with the heel of my hand now, unable to control myself. “Why does everybody and everything good have to die? Why? It’s too unfair. It’s too—”
Joe had his arms around me again. “I know,” he said above my head. “I know. But his wife is gone, you know. He lost his work, the country he loved became unrecognizable, and he’s alone. I think all of that broke his heart.”
How had I had so many tears, when I’d thought I had none? I was clutching my handkerchief, trying to get the words out. “I know it’s—it’s selfish, but I— I— He had me, though. He had me. I didn’t tell him I loved him. I didn’t—”
“Oh, Marguerite,” Joe said helplessly. “He knows that. He loves you, too, I’m sure. Do you think everything gets said? Aren’t there things you just know?”
I nodded against him. It was all I could do. He said, “Have you had anything to eat?”
“N-no. I c-couldn’t. I wanted to ride over there, when you didn’t come. I wanted to—”
“But you didn’t,” Joe said. “I’m awfully glad I put that in the note.”
His voice was a little amused now, and I found I could sit back, sniff, and say, “I only obeyed because I knew you were right.”
“Well, I’ll take that,” he said. “What were you going to eat?”
I nodded at the tiny draining board. “Potatoes mashed with cabbage. And herring. Shouldn’t we go over there, though, and be with him?”
“Visiting hours are only three times a week,” Joe said. “I can take you the day after tomorrow.”
“He won’t have his books, though.”
“He’s really very ill,” Joe said.
“But he needs his books. He needs to know they’re there.”
He raised his hands, then dropped them. “OK. I’ll drive you over there tomorrow evening, once I’m done with work, and we’ll drop off a few books for him. Does that work?”
“Yes,” I said, wiping my eyes yet again. “And I’m working, too. So you know. At the bakery. I’m not—not helpless, like you thought. I’m not—”
Joe smiled. How dear was his smile to me! “I’ve never thought you were helpless. Not possible. You may be the least helpless person I’ve ever known.”
“But I cried,” I said, wiping my nose this time. Oh, I was a vision of loveliness.
“I cried, too,” Joe said. “When I left that day.”
He had his rucksack in his lap and was pulling things out of it.
Cheese, canned ham and oranges, and a banana.
I hadn’t seen a banana in years. It distracted me, and it took me a few seconds to say, “You mean when—when we broke up? That’s what it’s called, right?
Breaking up? You did? The way I did just now?
Where could you possibly have done that? ”
He laughed out loud. “You’re right. No sobbing in the barracks. I had some tears in the Jeep, though. I didn’t sob, no, but my heart ached like crazy. Is that enough for you?”
“Oh.” He’d found a plate and was putting ham and cheese and pickle on it, cutting into the rye loaf I’d brought from the bakery, peeling an orange and separating it into sections, and I was salivating like one of my father’s hunting dogs.
I was still so sad, but I was somehow beginning to feel a glow of happiness, too.
How could both things be true at once? “May I eat half of the banana?”
“You,” Joe said, putting the plate in front of me, “may eat the whole banana. Where’s your good bread, though? The potato kind?”
I couldn’t figure out how to get the stem of the banana off. He had to do it for me. “It’s not being made anymore,” I said.
“Why not, if you’re working at the bakery again? And how did that happen?”
“At the counter only. Because they needed me. Herr Adelberg is doing the baking, though. I’m sure he’ll improve. He’s probably just out of practice.”
“Serve them right if they lose all their customers,” Joe said.
“Yes,” I said, “I’ve had some uncharitable thoughts myself.” We both smiled at that. “But I must ask—I have to ask—do we get to be friends again now? Is that why you came here again after so long? I don’t understand the—the rules about breaking up. I only know from films and books.”
“Well, no,” Joe said, and my heart sank again. He was still smiling, though. What did that mean? Joe could never be cruel. “I guess I’m back here exactly as soon as I could possibly get here because I’m hoping to talk you out of the breaking-up idea.”
“But—” I was staring at him now. “You’ve been gone two weeks.”
“Yeah,” he said, “because we left two days after Christmas on a sort of atrocity tour. The only thing worse than driving to Czechoslovakia in a Jeep in December is driving back from Czechoslovakia in January with a fresh load of atrocities on your mind. It’s been …
” He blew out a long breath. “It’s been a mighty tough time, with that and the idea that I’d just thrown away the greatest girl I’d ever met.
I’m not too easy to keep on the mat, though, so here I am again, looking for another shot.
I brought food with me, too. Bribery might not be the most high-minded tactic, but whatever works. "
I was eating the banana along with the ham. It was an odd combination, but it tasted so delicious at that moment, I wanted to bury my face in the plate. The feeling suffusing me, though, was so much more than that. “So you didn’t want to leave me?”
“I thought I just made that pretty clear,” Joe said. “I’m nervous about saying all that, though, and I’d sure appreciate an answer.”
“Oh.” My smile was foolish, I was sure. “I’m still seventeen, though.”
“Yep.” Joe ate a slice of bread with ham and cheese and pickle and began fixing another one. “Too bad, because I’m in love with you anyway. I figure that can be our secret. Ours, and the Professor’s. You’re also a princess, but again—”
“The title is ersatz,” I said. “Like German coffee. Who cares?” Bubbles of happiness were rising in me like champagne.
“But you’re also still Jewish, and I’m not.
” That was a sobering thought. “Your parents. All your family. Dr. Becker was married to an Aryan, but he felt more German than Jewish, I believe. I don’t think that’s true of your family, and I must tell you—I don’t think I can stop being a Catholic. It’s—it’s who I am.”
“Did you want to live with my family?” Joe asked.
“What?” I stared at him. Why was he asking that? “If that’s usual in America, I suppose I—”
“Well, too bad,” he said, “because we’re not doing it. They can get used to us being married, or they can decide not to. I don’t see how anybody meets you and doesn’t think I’m the luckiest guy in the world, so I have high hopes.”
“But—but children. I told you, my condition—”
“You said that your father’s burns made your mother love him even more deeply, because his scars were his strength. You said that her condition did the same thing for him. Your parents had you anyway, and look how lucky they were. They got you.”
The warmth was filling me, but I still had to say this. “They had two sons also. They both died. It broke their hearts.”
Joe had been about to eat his slice of bread.
Now, he set it down and took my hand again.
“One thing I’ve learned over here,” he said, “is that if you wait for the world to be perfect before you’re happy, you’ll never be happy at all.
Life’s full of hard things, from what I’ve seen of it, and sometimes they’re the hardest things.
It’s not about whether we ever fall down, though.
It’s about whether we can help each other back up.
And one reason I love you—” His voice wasn’t steady anymore.
“Is the way you keep going through everything. Sure, you were privileged. Sure, you had a palace and jewels and all of that. But what you have at the bottom of you is so much more than that. The best soldiers aren’t necessarily the guys who finish the obstacle course first in boot camp.
They’re the guys who turn around and help somebody else over the top.
That’s the kind of husband I want to be, and that’s the kind of wife I want, too. And that’s you.”
I couldn’t speak for a whole minute. There was too much in my heart.
Joe must have known, because he was holding me again.
“I’ve got one year of college,” he said against my hair, “and no idea what the future holds after all of this. But there’s nobody I trust more than you to walk into the unknown with.
So I’m going to ask you again. Will you marry me? ”
“I have the jewels,” I said, “and I can sell them. I will sell them. But I don’t have anything else except my …
myself, I suppose. My character. I know how to work, and I know how to survive.
And you’re the best man I’ve ever known.
Well, except for my father.” We both laughed a little at that, and then I pulled back, put a hand on his dear, bony face, and said, “I don’t know how to be in love.
I’d never want you to think I married you out of desperation, but honestly?
I don’t know how to tell whether that’s true. ”
“Hey,” Joe said. “You just said that you know how to survive.”
“That’s right,” I said. “I did. So it must not be desperation, do you think?”
“Doesn’t matter what I think.” He wasn’t smiling anymore. “It matters what you think.”
I had to stop and ponder that a minute, and he didn’t rush me.
He waited, and finally, I said, “I’ve been more unhappy these past weeks than I have since—well, since I lost my family.
That was a great—a great rent in my heart, and this was the same.
I came to realize how much you mean to me, and it’s hurt so much to lose you.
So—yes. I want to leap into the unknown with you, the same way my mother did with my father.
” I smiled, now, though I was close to tears again.
“Every story is different, though, isn’t it?
We can write our own story, you and I. And look—we’ve already begun. ”