Epilogue

The Von Trier Institute, Hyderabad, Telangana, India

June 9, 2010

9:00 a.m. (India Standard Time)

Henrietta and Neil entered the small, white room. The window was open to let in the cool of the early morning. It brought with it the smell of jacaranda and the sounds of children playing.

The lady within was tiny, visibly older than her years, skin darkened and wrinkled by the relentless sun of the region. She sat in a wicker chair, a sheet covering her legs, her hands folded underneath. She looked up at her visitors with an alert curiosity.

“So you have come all this way to talk about my father?”

“Yes,” said Henrietta.

“But he died in the mountains long ago.”

“Did he or did he really end his days here with you in Hyderabad?” Henrietta asked, slightly too hastily—overeager in her desire to get to the truth.

The birdlike woman just smiled at the quick fire question, if a little grimly, and then, shaking her head slowly, replied, “No, he died in the Alps in 1938. He was killed by the SS.”

Henrietta paused this time before saying, as kindly as she was able, “But isn’t that the official version? With the greatest of respect, wasn’t the reality somewhat different?”

“No.”

“But you are Ilsa von Trier, Magda von Trier’s daughter?”

“I am.”

“So wasn’t Josef Becker your father? Didn’t your parents meet on the SS Gneisenau when they both came to India in the spring of 1939?”

“No, but like my adoptive mother I did meet Josef. He was a kind man. He saved my life on the Paznaun when my family was trying to escape from Austria into Switzerland. He pushed me into a stone altar when the Germans surrounded the chapel where we were resting. I crawled out through a drain hole in the wall and jumped down the hill into the snow just like some goats I had seen on the way up. I disturbed the mules we had with us and the SS started shooting, but I fell so fast and so far they couldn’t catch me.

“My mother told me how Josef thought I had been killed with the rest of my family

on that ridge. I probably should have died up there but I kept going down that hill until I was found by a shepherd. Thinking that soldiers might be looking for me because of my family, I lied to him that my name was Ilsa Becker. You see, just before the SS came, I had asked Josef his name, and, even though he wasn’t meant to, he told me. I think he did it because he was trying so hard to cheer me up and get me over that terrible mountain.”

She stopped talking for a moment, her face freezing as she thought about something still painful to her.

“For years after, I truly believed that by asking I had, in some way, caused what then happened to everyone. Even so, I stuck with my lie, that name, the name of the person who had saved my life. It was a shield to hide behind, a reminder that I must never let my guard down, but also it spoke to me of the kindness of that particular German. It said that not all of them were evil.

“I took a long time to recover from that night without end. The shepherd and his wife thought at first that I was going to die from being so exposed to the cold. I lost all my fingers on this hand because of frostbite.”

From under the sheet, she pulled out her maimed and scarred right hand as if in proof of her story.

“Josef had taken off my wet glove to warm it with his dry hands just before ...” Her voice breaking under the weight of her words, Ilsa paused, swallowed, and then, visibly steeling herself, continued. “I’m sorry, but moments like those never leave you. That shepherd and his wife looked after me for most of the war as one of their own. But then they were robbed and killed by a renegade band of army deserters in 1944 and I had to run for my life a second time. After that I was passed between a lot of people to stay free.”

“So how did you come here?” Neil asked.

“In the chaos after the war ended, Magda tried to find Josef’s family—his mother and sisters—searching high and low through the mountain communities and displaced persons camps of Bavaria. But it was all in vain; the Nazis had killed them in Ravensbrück despite the fact that Josef did what they wanted him to do. The SS were despicable. They even sent an agent here to Hyderabad to kill Magda, but her father was too clever for them. After the boat journey he knew she was in danger and sent her to work in the small villages helping people, so that she couldn’t be found. She never stopped that work once she heard what had happened to Josef. Their betrayal of his courage and honor sickened her to her dying day.”

“But how did she know he climbed the mountain?”

“The Sherpa Ang Noru.”

Henrietta and Quinn looked at each other in recognition of that fact, both also silently acknowledging that it had been Josef Becker all along in that icy cave on the Second Step.

“Ang Noru made it down from Everest,” Ilsa von Trier continued, “and then eventually here, thanks to a letter and a photograph of Magda that Josef gave him to deliver if he survived the climb. He was an incredibly strong and loyal man, as devoted to the memory of Josef as Magda was. He worked here until he died in August of 1964. He helped me a lot. Ang Noru understood suffering and he understood frostbite.”

“When did you come here?”

“In 1946. Josef had told Magda all about me and my family on the boat. She noticed my false name, Ilsa Becker, on the roster of the Landsberg DP Camp, when she was searching for his family. Curious, she asked to meet me and soon worked out that I was actually Ilsa Rosenberg. She proved how she knew who I was by showing me some photos of Josef she was using in the search for his relations. Soon after she arranged for me to travel to India. I took her name, and we lived as mother and daughter.”

Ilsa rang a small bell and an Indian orderly came into the room. “Yes, Miss von Trier?”

“Nerula, can you bring my mother’s scrapbook from my bedroom table?”

They waited quietly until the man returned with what had once been an expensive photograph album. Its dark blue leather covers were old and battered, scarcely able to contain the bulging mass of press cuttings, letters, and photographs that crammed the huge volume. Wary of its weight, the orderly positioned it gently on the sheet that covered Ilsa von Trier’s lap.

“There are some pictures in here of my mother and Josef on the boat to India.”

Opening the album, she revealed some pages of small black-and-white pictures of a sea voyage. Most were views from the ship, but a few showed Magda on deck, others were of her parents. Magda von Trier was beautiful in the photographs, young and happy. There was only one of Josef. It was a close-up of his face in which he seemed to be laughing uncontrollably at something, the shine of tears showing on his creased cheeks.

As Ilsa turned the pages onward with her good hand, Neil noticed that she was wearing a silver ring with the relief of an edelweiss flower. Seeing him look at it, Ilsa stopped at a page on which was glued a single, very creased and tattered photograph of Magda and a handwritten letter.

“This is the photograph and the letter that led Ang Noru to Hyderabad. Josef Becker gave the ring you were looking at to my mother on the steamship. She wore it for the rest of her life, as I will too.”

“Am I right in thinking you said Magda showed you more than one photograph of Josef Becker when she found you? Can I see the others?” Henrietta asked.

“Yes, here are some more.”

Ilsa turned the page again, which to Neil’s and Henrietta’s delight, revealed shots of either Ang Noru or Josef in and around the Rongbuk Monastery with Everest itself in the background.

The pictures of Ang Noru were very sharp, clearly showing the Sherpa’s strong, proud face, but the first ones of Josef were poorly taken. They dramatically improved, however, as Ilsa leafed further through the album until coming to a page that was completely empty of any images. After it, the photographs immediately recommenced, showing Magda and the work she did, many of them with a young Ilsa at her side.

Returning to the blank page, Ilsa tapped it three times with her damaged hand.

“My mother always left that page blank in remembrance of the photograph that Ang Noru took of Josef on the summit of Mount Everest. In his letter Josef told my mother that he would do what the Nazis ordered, summit and die on the mountain, if it would save his family and her, but he would never give them what they wanted, a picture of their flag dominating the entire world. Instead he dedicated his summit to the very people the Nazis were oppressing.

“Ang Noru brought here only a single roll of film, the one with which Josef had shown him how to properly take a photograph. He never stopped apologizing for not bringing the camera with the film from the summit. He said that the last thing Josef did up there was take pictures to the north, south, east, and west to show beyond a shadow of doubt that they had really made it to the very highest point on earth. After, he had kept the camera around his neck, pushing it deep inside his jacket to protect it. During the descent everything became so desperate and sad that the camera was forgotten.”

Henrietta opened her briefcase and removed a brown envelope. From within, she took out Josef Becker’s summit photo and placed it on the blank page. With a smile, she said, “Then, Ilsa Rosenberg, this is for you.”