CHAPTER 3 - OLDENBURG, GERMANY—APRIL 17, 1916
Anna, eager to tell her vater about the day’s events, finished work and left the hospital.
In the distance, St. Lambert’s Church—its neo-Gothic spires towering above the town’s clay tile rooftops—formed a silhouette against a magenta sky.
She scurried toward home, disregarding crosswalks and taking shortcuts through backstreets and alleyways.
She dodged horse-drawn wagons and bicyclists, as well as a skinny-wheeled motorcar that was transporting a high-ranking military officer.
Ten minutes later, she reached her home, a narrow three-story brick building on a cobblestone street.
A carved wooden sign above the storefront read Uhrmacher (clockmaker).
“Vater!” Anna shouted, stepping inside. She took in gulps of air, attempting to catch her breath. A scent of ancient timber, varnish, and clock oil permeated her nose. Rhythmical timepiece ticking thrummed in her ears.
“I’ll be right there,” a voice called from a storage room.
The street-level floor of Anna’s home served as her father’s workshop.
The walls, workbenches, and dust-covered glass cases contained numerous timepieces, either functioning or in various stages of repair.
Wall clocks. Grandfather clocks. Watches.
Alarm clocks. Mantel clocks. Pendulum clocks.
Regulator clocks. Carriage clocks. Cuckoo clocks.
After the war erupted, most of the residents of Oldenburg refrained from servicing their clocks, and the sale of refurbished pieces dwindled to almost a stop.
Norbie Zeller, who had once been charged with caring for the town’s most prized timepieces, including the clock towers in Oldenburg Palace and St. Lambert’s Church, struggled to earn a living.
Norbie, a fifty-nine-year-old man with salt-and-pepper hair, beard, and mustache, entered the workshop. He adjusted his round, wire-rimmed glasses, which were balanced on the tip of his bulbous nose. “Hallo, Anna.”
She hugged her vater.
He squeezed her. “Is everything okay?”
“Ja,” Anna said, releasing him. “Something good happened at work. I raced home to tell you about it.”
“I’ll close the shop and make us a bit of coffee.”
She glanced at a wall of clocks, their pendulums swinging out of sync. “But you’re open for another hour.”
“I’d rather hear about my daughter’s day.” He locked the door and placed a Closed sign in the window.
Anna smiled. A memory of her childhood flashed in her head of when Norbie shooed away customers to create time to listen to her rehearse lines for a school play.
I love that you always drop what you are doing to make time for me.
Feeling grateful for her vater’s undivided attention, she followed him up the stairs, leaving the ticktock resonance of the workshop behind.
Minutes later, they sat at the kitchen table. Norbie poured coffee into porcelain cups, hand-painted with white roses and green wreaths, which they typically used for holidays.
“I wish we had cream or sugar,” he said, sliding a cup to Anna.
“Danke,” she said. “But we should be saving the coffee. The rationing is getting worse. It’s unlikely we’ll find more.”
Norbie blew on his coffee. “Good news rarely arises from a military hospital. I see hope and excitement in your eyes, and that makes me want to celebrate.”
Anna smiled, and then sipped her coffee. The bitter, acidic taste invigorated her mind, spawning images of her afternoon in the hospital garden. For the next several minutes, she told Norbie about the battle-blinded soldier, who was guided along a garden path by Dr. Stalling’s German shepherd.
“It was lovely,” Anna said, rubbing a finger over the rim of her cup. “The man followed the dog’s lead, routing him around the garden. I wish you could have seen the happiness on the man’s face.”
“Incredible,” Norbie said. “I didn’t know that shepherds were trained for the blind.”
“They’re not,” Anna said. “But they’ve been trained for many roles in the military.
Dr. Stalling is a director of the Ambulance Dogs Association.
He believes that dogs can be trained in great numbers for the blind, and he plans to request funding from the government to establish a guide dog school in Oldenburg. ”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. But Stalling mentioned that he plans to gain the support of the Grand Duke of Oldenburg to acquire ground for the school.”
“That is wonderful news.” Norbie sipped his coffee. “Stalling must be quite an influential doctor.”
Anna nodded. “We’ve admitted scores of battle-blinded soldiers at the hospital, and more are coming in each day from the front.
With the medical staff occupied with caring for the critically injured, the blinded men are often unaccompanied while they sit on benches or wander the floors of the hospital, gliding their hands over the walls to find their way. ”
“My goodness,” Norbie said.
An uneasiness swirled in her stomach. “Some of the blind have no family to care for them, and they have little chance of living a life outside of a government care facility. Guide dogs might give them hope and independence.”
Norbie leaned over the table and looked into her eyes. “I’m proud of you.”
Gratitude swelled inside her. “But I didn’t do anything. I merely happened to be in the garden to witness the event.”
“You work to save lives, each and every day,” Norbie said. “And you must have done something special, otherwise Dr. Stalling would not have confided in you.”
“Danke,” Anna said. An image of Stalling’s dog, licking the soldier’s hand, flashed in her brain. “If the school opens, I would love a chance to observe them train.”
“Why don’t you volunteer to help?” Norbie asked.
Anna straightened her spine. “The training will likely be carried out by the Ambulance Dogs Association. Besides, I know nothing about working with dogs, and I have little free time away from the hospital.”
“I think you’d be good at it,” he said, rubbing his beard. “I’ve always wanted you to have a dog.”
“You have?”
“Ja,” he said.
“Why didn’t we have one?”
Norbie clasped his cup. “Your mutter and I had planned to get a dog when you were a child, but things changed when she became ill.”
She glanced to the living room, where her mutter’s piano had remained silent for years. A dull, timeless sorrow rose in her chest.
Anna’s mutter, Helga, died from cancer when Anna was five years old.
Helga had been an affectionate mother and spouse, and a soft-spoken, artistic woman who adored to sing and play the piano, despite having no formal musical instruction.
Although Anna was young when her mutter died, her memories of Helga were kept alive by Norbie’s tales of his beloved wife, which he told often and with copious variations to entertain his daughter.
He often spoke of the angelic timbre of Helga’s voice, which lifted the spirits of parishioners when she sang solos in the church choir.
The time that she’d helped Norbie trim his beard and inadvertently snipped off half of his mustache.
The day that she gave birth to Anna, making Norbie and Helga—according to Norbie—the happiest couple in Deutschland.
Aside from Norbie’s stories, Anna’s fondest memory of Mutter was of sitting on her lap while she played the piano.
Despite the passing of years, she could still visualize Helga’s nimble fingers cascading over the keys.
And she could almost feel the warmth of her mutter’s kisses, pressing into her hair.
“I was devastated when Helga died,” Norbie said. “I was overwhelmed with being both a mutter and a vater, and I was struggling to earn enough money to keep us fed and a roof over our head. But if I could do it over again, I would have gotten you a dog.”
“You were a wonderful parent,” Anna said. “I wouldn’t have changed a thing.”
He patted her hand, and then finished his coffee. “Perhaps it’s never too late to get a dog.”
It’d be difficult to properly feed a pet, given the rationing. Not wanting to dampen Norbie’s optimism, she smiled and nodded.
“I have something for you.” He stood, chair legs scraping over the weathered wood floor, and retrieved an envelope from a counter. “A letter arrived from Bruno.”
Anna’s heart leaped.
He gave her the letter, kissed her on the top of the head, and then made his way to the stairs.
“You don’t have to leave,” Anna said.
“There’s no need for me to infringe upon my daughter’s privacy. If you wish, you can tell me about it later.” He wiped his eyeglasses with a handkerchief from his trousers and descended the stairs to his workshop.
Anna, anxious to read the letter, retrieved a paring knife from a cabinet and opened the envelope. Her pulse quickened as she unfolded the paper.
Anna glanced at her bare finger. Her engagement ring was stored inside a pine keepsake box in her room.
Due to her nursing duties, which required sterility, the wearing of jewelry on her hospital ward was prohibited.
Although she had a sound reason for not wearing the ring, a twinge of guilt fluttered in her stomach.
“I miss you,” Anna whispered.
She wiped tears from her eyes, and then placed the letter into the envelope.
Her heart ached for Bruno, the maimed soldiers at the hospital, and the countless men who would die before the fighting came to an end.
How much longer must we wait until the war is over?
Attempting to dispel the ache in her chest, Anna retrieved a pencil and paper, and she began to write.