25

HANNAH STERLING

FEBRUARY 1973

Through Carl’s official status as a Berlin driver, we obtained permission to enter the eastern sector the same day. Still, there were questionnaires regarding the purpose and length of our visit and a detailed itinerary to complete. We were required to exchange money at an exorbitant rate after we and our car were thoroughly searched. Carl’s magazine and my paperback book were confiscated, as if Jane Eyre might corrupt the residents of East Berlin. By the time we crossed Checkpoint Charlie, I felt almost violated. Only my need for answers bolstered my courage.

Carl wasted no time in finding the Kirchmanns’ old street. We searched up and down the street, but there was no number 143. We knocked repeatedly on doors in the vicinity. At last a woman cracked her door —perhaps four inches.

“There’s been no number 143 as long as we have lived here —ten years at least.” She closed the door in our faces.

We knocked on three other doors, but there was no answer.

“Look.” Carl pointed to an old woman carrying her shopping bags from the bus corner.

“She’s old enough; she might have lived here then.” I could barely restrain my hope and barely contain my anticipated disappointment. It took us five minutes to convince her we meant no harm, that we just wanted to locate Marta Kirchmann for my mother’s sake.

Carl translated her German. “Yes, I remember the Kirchmanns very well. A good family —good neighbors. But it turned out the mother was a Jewess and that they’d been helping Jews —hiding them in their own attic! Of course, in those days, they disappeared. So many people here one day and gone the next. We never knew where . . . Marta? Nein, I do not know where Marta went. I saw her and her brother after the war. Nothing but a vapor, he was. They moved away after a time . . . too many bad memories, I suppose. The new owners pulled down the old house; the kitchen had been bombed near the end of the war and the building was never sound again. They built this apartment house. All the numbers are mixed up —such a mess.”

We thanked her and returned to Carl’s car. He opened the door for me, resting his hand on my back. “I’m sorry, Hannah.”

But I was too spent to respond, too near tears from hopes built high and dashed to the ground.

On the drive back to Grandfather’s, Carl promised, “I’ll check the address you found in Herr Sommer’s ledger. It will be easier, quicker for me to get through checkpoints again than for you. I’ll let you know what I learn. Who knows —perhaps someone there will remember the Kirchmanns.”

I nodded and pressed his shoulder in gratitude. We drove in silence until we reached the house.

The kitchen was cold. It didn’t look as if Grandfather had stepped inside it. He must be hungry. I didn’t know if I could look at him after all I’d learned at the Schmidts’. I could live with you as a miserable, selfish old man . . . but a conniving murderer? A mercenary who dealt in blood money? That’s how you made your wealth —the wealth you intend to pass on to me . . . or to buy my allegiance with. The realization made me want to vomit.

My head throbbed and my joints ached. I threw my coat and gloves over the chair and set the kettle to boil.

He must be hungry —unless he ate the breakfast I left for him. But that was hours ago. No matter what I think about him, I can’t let him starve. I wouldn’t let a prisoner starve. I stood at the foot of the stairs, listening. No sounds came from Grandfather’s room.

I cut sandwich bread, slathered it with mustard, and draped it with cheese. There was cold roast beef in the icebox and some soup left from the day before. By the time the tea was made and his tray prepared, I’d eaten half my sandwich. I drew a deep breath and headed for Grandfather’s room. I had no idea how I’d look him in the eye.

I knocked softly. No answer. I knocked again and called, “Grandfather?” I pushed open the door. “Grossvater?” His bed was empty, the eiderdown still rumpled, as though he’d just risen. But his dressing gown and slippers were thrown across it. He’d apparently eaten the bun and coffee I’d left for him this morning. I listened at the stairs, but there were no sounds from the third floor.

Could he be in the dining room or library? I balanced the tray on my hip to try the library door, expecting it to be locked. But it easily gave way.

The curtains had been drawn closed and the brass lamp on the desk was lit, papers scattered across the desktop. The ledger I’d seen for only a moment lay facedown on the floor —as if thrown. One end of the bookcase had swung away from the wall, a dark and narrow opening behind it.

It was a scene from an Alfred Hitchcock movie. I set the tray on the small table by the door and looked again, half expecting it all to have disappeared. And that’s when I saw Grandfather’s hand stretched out on the floor.

“Grandfather!” Behind the desk his body lay crumpled, his face contorted, his leg bent at an odd angle. I was sure he was dead.

A soft, barely perceptible moan escaped his lips —lips nearly blue.

“What happened? Grandfather, what happened?” He couldn’t answer, didn’t open his eyes. Think! Think! Who should I call? Dr. Peterson. But I didn’t know his number or how to reach him. So I pummeled the telephone cradle for the operator.

“Please, my grandfather has collapsed! I think it might be his heart, and I don’t know how to reach his doctor.”

Between my lack of German and the operator’s feeble English, it took five minutes to communicate the address and need. But help would soon be on the way.

I pulled a pillow from the wingback chair and, lifting his head, tucked it beneath. “Someone will be here soon, Grandfather. They’ll get hold of Dr. Peterson. I’m sure he’ll come. Hang on.”

I sat back on my heels, trying to think what to do next. The room was a shambles —at least compared to its normal state.

If someone sees this, they’ll suspect a burglary. They’ll take an inventory of all they see. And if they see that ledger, won’t they draw the same conclusions Carl has? If they take the ledger, I’ll never see it again. I’ll never learn the truth. Before I thought it through, I picked up the ledger and squeezed it between two volumes on the bookshelf. I pushed the desk drawer closed. Everything looked normal, except for the bookshelf and the narrow hole in the wall. A walk-in safe? A secret room?

Running my hand round the edge of the hole, I searched for a light switch, finding nothing but a lock on the outer edge. I pushed the bookcase a little wider, hoping the lamplight would reveal more. Shapes —large rectangles and small boxes —sat on shelves or leaned against the one blank wall in a room no more than three feet by nine, cleverly situated between the dining room and library walls. A hidden space no one could detect.

The far-off wail of an ambulance broke the spell.

If I close this door, how will I open it again? It looks as if it needs a key. The wail screamed closer, intensified, then stopped abruptly. I pushed the bookcase, watching it swing easily toward the wall. At the last moment I stopped it. A pounding came on the front door. Slipping a slim book between the wall and the back of the bookcase, I shoved the bookcase as far as it would go. A latch on the back all but caught. The pounding came again, and a voice called out, demanding entrance.

Casting a last quick glance over the room, at Grandfather still askew on the floor, I ran to the door.

The ambulance medics swept in. All I did was point toward the library.

“He has heart trouble. I was out all day, and when I brought in his tray, I found him like this.” I babbled in English, not knowing if they understood.

Both medics glanced at the tray and back at me, as if questioning my story. I could only guess how it must appear.

In three minutes they had lifted Grandfather, moaning softly and deathly pale, onto a gurney. I spotted a ring with two brass keys —one small and one heavier —where his body had been. I picked it up with his handkerchief that had fallen and slipped it into my pocket.

“His doctor?” one of the medics demanded. “Have you telephoned his doctor?”

“Oh, thank heaven you speak English!” Flustered, I could barely focus.

“His doctor?”

“Dr. Peterson, but I don’t know how to reach him. I have no number. I told the operator.”

“You are?”

“Hannah Sterling —he’s my grandfather, Wolfgang Sommer. I’m visiting from America.”

The other medic grinned. “I believe.”

“Your grandfather has prescriptions?” the first medic asked.

“I —I don’t know. Probably. Do you want me to check his room?”

“Ja. It is best. Where?”

“Up the stairs, first door on the left.” I raced after him.

“Medications within the last hour?”

“I don’t know. I’m sorry.” We searched Grandfather’s bedside table, the top dresser drawer of his walnut bureau, the bookcase by the window, his bathroom medicine cabinet —nothing. If hand-wringing were an occupation, I’d have been well paid.

“Not to worry, Fräulein. The hospital should have his file. His doctor will be telephoned.”

“Can I go with you to the hospital? I have no car.”

“Nein, it is verboten. Here is the number of the hospital where we take him. Phone them after one hour.” He whipped out a card. In less than another minute they were out the door and the house fell completely silent, except for the pounding of my heart.