Dear Glory,
It sounds as though your Thanksgiving dinner was held in the true spirit of the holiday. The most disparate personalities can manage to come together when a good meal sits on the table. I raise my glass to Robert in absentia. To Victory, yes, and to those who’ve brought us to its threshold.
In all likelihood this package won’t arrive at your doorstep until after the holidays. It’s a good thing I don’t work for Santa, as it seems I am unable to send Christmas gifts on time! The recipe included with this letter is for you. And I do hope Robbie likes his present—the beret was Sal’s. All artistes should look the part, right? Mrs. K. helped with the dress for Corrine.
And speaking of my next door neighbor...
Breaking news on the Iowa front: Mrs. K. is NOT a widow!
Is your mouth hanging open? Mine was surely catching flies.
Let me explain...
I hated to think of Roylene wearing those worn feed-sack dresses when not in uniform, so I decided to refashion a few of mine as a Christmas present. I knew I’d have trouble with some of the new necklines, so I bit down my pride and knocked on Mrs. K.’s door. I expected she’d turn me away. To my surprise, she didn’t do much of anything. The door opened and she made a sound and disappeared into the depths of her home.
An open door is a sort of invitation, so I followed.
Mrs. K.’s living room appeared normal—spotless, orderly, smelling slightly of onions—but something was off. In the kitchen, the morning’s newspaper covered the table where Mrs. K. usually sat copying V-mails. With a sigh she pulled out a chair and dropped herself heavily into it.
“What’s wrong?” I, of all people should understand blue moods, but the sight of a depressed Mrs. K. brought an unexpected surge of irritation.
Her face remained blank.
“For the love of God, what is it?” I wanted to shake her.
The old woman’s fingers crawled across the tabletop and slid a yellowed photograph from underneath The Daily Iowan.
It was a wedding portrait. The man was well-built and serious of expression, the woman stout and dreamy-eyed. Two strangers.
“It is our anniversary,” she whispered.
Funny, I’d forgotten Mrs. K. had to be married at some point to be called a widow. I couldn’t imagine her waking up to this man, nuzzling his shoulder, cooking him breakfast, ironing his shirts. Standing there, I realized that I’d always wondered about her past—but never found the right moment to ask. The question was about to jump from my rude tongue when she offered the information herself.
After her parents died, Mrs. K. opened a fabric and notions shop with her small inheritance. To offset the cost of doing business, she worked as a seamstress on call for the University of Berlin.
Every spring she kept busy repairing and sewing talars—those black, voluminous gowns professors wear at graduation ceremonies. One Saturday morning Helmuth Kleinschmidt pushed open the door to her shop and demanded she whip one up for him. He sighed and drummed his fingers on the counter while she finished with another customer, ill at ease in a place reserved for women. His manner bothered her, and Mrs. K.—Bruna—questioned him, saying he did not look old enough to be anything more than a student.
He barked his résumé at her. Helmuth was a prodigy of sorts, lecturing at the university before he’d even finished his degree. “In the time it takes you to walk around the block,” he said to her, “I’ll have earned my doctorate.”
Though she knew how to read and write well enough, Mrs. K. was intimidated by erudition. She silently bent at his feet with her measuring tape, and began preparing the order.
As she slid the tape up his inseam her hand began to tremble. She prayed he wouldn’t notice, and he didn’t, until she looped it around his muscular neck. He teased her about it. She smiled and forced herself to meet his gaze. They were married within the year.
Helmuth Kleinschmidt was twenty years old on his wedding day. His bride was thirty-one.
People laughed. They said Helmuth wanted a nursemaid, not a wife.
Which was true enough. Helmuth finished his graduate studies in record time, mostly because his wife cooked and cleaned and worked tirelessly to support him. While he fought in the Great War, she worked. When he resumed his low-paying teaching job at the university, she worked. When he said they were moving to America, that he had been offered a tenure-track position in Philosophy, she was so busy it took her a week to ask where.
“Iowa City,” he said.
“Is that near New York?”
“Dummkopf,” he said.
They settled in and enjoyed the social life of an up-and-coming scholar and his wife. Mrs. K. reprised her job sewing and repairing graduation robes, and nearly doubled their income. She was happy. So much so that she didn’t notice his absences, the late-night “German club” meetings held in their cavernous basement, the last-minute trips to academic conferences she’s now certain never existed.
When she returned from installing some curtains at the university one afternoon in the summer of 1927, he was gone. A rather curt note lay on her pillow. “I’ve returned to Germany,” it said. “I trust you’ll be fine, Bruna.”
Few people asked, but when someone did she always said he’d gone back to visit his parents in Berlin and got hit by an omnibus. She didn’t care if it was bad luck to create someone’s death story. She figured he deserved it.
After a year or two she’d convinced herself he really was dead.
Then, in 1938, a letter from her cousin Adele stopped Mrs. K.’s heart. Adele had seen Helmuth in Stuttgart. He looked dashing in his high-ranking Nazi officer’s uniform. He hadn’t the time for conversation, but it appeared as though life in Germany had been good to Herr Kleinschmidt.
After eleven years, it finally hit her that he had left.
Anger became Mrs. K.’s constant companion, and later, as the war unfurled, fear.
“This is why I can’t go to the prison camp,” she said after I’d digested her story. “HE might be there. Bastard.”
I nearly said, No, HE is probably lying facedown in a ditch with Uncle Sam’s footprint on his back...but I didn’t. She still thinks about him, which means, in some way, she still loves him.
I put my hand on her shoulder, which I don’t think I’d ever done. “How about we get you all dolled up so you can flirt with Sergeant Freddy,” I said. “Make Helmuth crazy jealous.”
I got the tiniest movement in her upper lip. “Hure,” she called me (it means what it sounds like). We were back to familiar terrain.
We spent the rest of the afternoon creating dresses for Roylene that would put anything in Harper’s Bazaar to shame. Mrs. K. said my sewing would horrify Sal’s mother, but I think I did all right!
And you know, I didn’t think I wanted any more surprises in life, but I was lying to myself. The world can change on a dime, but I guess that isn’t always a bad thing.
Have a joyous holiday, Glory. Please send my good wishes to everyone in Rockport.
Love,
Rita
P.S. Mrs. K.’s admission got me thinking about how tightly we hold on to things, even when there’s no harm in loosening the grip a bit. It’s about time I shared some more of my family with you, hon, so Merry Christmas. This one’s for you. I think my husband would be pleased to know it’s in good hands.
Sal’s Favorite Minestrone
(Most people start with meat stock, but Mama Vincenzo always used vegetable, which is ideal now. She said it was “cleaner,” whatever that meant....)
Dice an onion. Cook it up in a pot with a little butter and olive oil until it softens. Add some chopped celery, garlic, oregano, basil, parsley. Add a dash of salt and pepper. This is tonic for the blood.
Slowly pour 5 cups of vegetable stock into the pot.
Chop up some potatoes and add them to the soup. Then add three times as many tomatoes. This is to keep a person connected to the earth.
Add some chopped carrots and diced courgette. This is to keep a person bright-eyed.
Toss in a handful of spinach, and as many green beans as you like. This is for strength.
Add some salt for the women in your life, and some pepper for the men—but not too much! Turn the heat down low.
If you let the minestrone simmer for less than two hours then Mama Vincenzo will haunt your kitchen for years....
If you don’t cover it in parmesan before you eat it, Sal will!