Ashes (2 page)

So that is the prologue.

The first chapter begins on the day I was born. May 29, 1919, less than a year after the end of the Great War. My father was not there that day. He was far away on a tiny island off the coast of West Africa, where he was finally able to photograph an eclipse. And in the moment of totality as it is called—those scant minutes when the stars closest to the sun could be seen—I was born.

The next several chapters of my story are rather boring. That is why I will start with Chapter 4. The first three chapters seem simple. I am born. I learn to walk. I learn to talk. “Clock” was my first word. I learn to read.
Winter Mouse
is the first book I read all by myself. I make summer visits to my grandparents' farm. My Opa dies. My Oma dies. The farm visits cease. I meet my best friend, Rosa Ebers, in kindergarten. When I enter third grade, Mama, a pianist, begins teaching piano lessons in our apartment and Papa gets promoted. He is soon chairman of the Department of Photoastronomy at the University of Berlin. He writes important books and papers. Mama's roster of piano students grows as Ulla and I become older. Our apartment is painted a soft sky blue. Mama lets Ulla and me choose wallpaper for our bedrooms. I choose wallpaper with daisies that look like they are blowing about in the wind.

So that is it, three chapters in one paragraph. It might seem fast the way I tell it. But it wasn't. These milestones mark long, lazy interludes.

Now my father and my mother think we might be hurtling toward another great war. But it hardly seems like hurtling to me, because there is this underlying sense of dread. Accidents happen fast, unexpectedly. No time to dread. But not wars. There is time, and in my mind dread is slow. You first disbelieve or deny what might be happening. You look once, twice. You don't quite admit what you see. Time begins to slow, to bend.

It is complicated, bending time. But all you need to know is that one's perception of time is affected by gravity. I am in Berlin where the local time is 2:27 p.m. on May 30, 1932. Yesterday I turned thirteen.

Oh, I forgot to tell you one thing. My middle name—Lucia, from
lux
, “light” in Latin. I was named for the starlight my father captured on film the day of my birth. All of our stories begin in the stars. We are all made of stardust. Every single atom in our bodies and every living or non-living thing, not just humans—butterflies, horses, mice, flowers, bugs, me, and Adolf Hitler—all stardust, forged in the hot core of an ancient star. Or as Papa says, “Ninety-two elements and I'll bake you a universe. That's all it takes.”

He had never seen dogs fight as these wolfish creatures fought, and his first experience taught him an unforgettable lesson. It is true, it was a vicarious experience, else he would not have lived to profit by it. Curly was the victim. They were camped near the log store, where she, in her friendly way, made advances to a husky dog the size of a full-grown wolf, though not half so large as she. There was no warning, only a leap in like a flash, a metallic clip of teeth, a leap out equally swift, and Curly's face was ripped open from eye to jaw.

- Jack London,
The Call of the Wild

 

 

 

 

I
did not hear Herr Doktor Berg's footsteps as he approached me. But his words dropped like chunks of cold sleet through the dry, stuffy air of the classroom. “And tell me, Fräulein, precisely how reading this
Call of the Wild
. . .” I had the book hidden inside my mathematics text. Doktor Berg cleared his throat noisily and then twisted his head about so he was actually reading the chapter title on the right page, “‘The Law of Club and Fang,' this particular chapter is called, I see . . . in this book by Mr. Jack London . . . Yes . . . Now, how might such laws help you with those laws that apply to solving quadratic equations?”

“So sorry, Herr Doktor Berg.” I didn't look up but slid the novel out from the algebra book and put it on top of my desk.

“Would you care to interrupt your reading—briefly, just briefly—and go to the blackboard to give us a demonstration of what I was just speaking about? Solve the equation I have just written up there.”

“Uh . . .” I finally looked up and squinted at the blackboard. I had absolutely no clue as to what Herr Doktor Berg had just been speaking about. He bent over a little closer and whispered, “The special feature of the quadratic equation is that such an equation can and usually does have two answers, two completely different answers to just one tiny problem. Please show us this, Fräulein, if you can tear yourself away from
TheCall of the Wild
.”

I could hear a few giggles behind me—not from Rosa, of course. She sat across the aisle, and I knew she sympathized with me.

The problem, you see, was the unfailing politeness of Herr Doktor Berg. It would have been so much better if he had given me a
Watschen
, a good slap. But instead he used his tongue like a strop and his polite, mannerly phrases mysteriously acquired a razor sharpness. As I walked to the blackboard to demonstrate the special feature of the quadratic equation, I felt as if my skin had suffered hundreds of little cuts, each seeping thin threads of blood.

Herr Doktor Berg rocked back and forth on his heels and addressed the class. “Perhaps Fräulein Gabriella does not realize that literature can have many levels of interpretation, but can they all be simultaneously truthful? Whereas in mathematics there is usually only one right answer, one truth. But the oddity of the quadratic equation, indeed its elegance, is that there can be two completely different answers, each truthful.”

I illustrated his point, quickly, neatly, precisely. It didn't matter that I hadn't been listening. Papa had shown me this stuff already. Such are the advantages of having a professor of astrophysics as a father. At the blackboard I explained that although both answers were “truthful,” only one was correct for the equation Herr Doktor Berg had written.

“And why is that, Fräulein?”

“Because, Herr Doktor Berg, if
x
equals ten or if
x
equals sixty, either will make the equation into a true statement. But
x
equals ten is the right answer in this case.”

“Why?” Doktor Berg pressed. He paused and raised his incredibly bushy eyes brows above his spectacles. “Why can you not apply the second answer? Why is the second answer like extra baggage?”

“Well, I guess because it is not reasonable for the particular situation you described when setting up this problem.”

“Precisely, Fräulein.” His eyes drilled into me. “It seems that although you have mastered the operations of demonstrating the oddities of quadratic equations, you have not mastered certain elements of real life, the real life of this classroom. You are cluttering it with your extra baggage. I think I need to help you out by collecting some of it. At the end of this period, you will kindly deliver to me the book you have been reading.”

My heart sank. It was almost as if I could feel a little plop at the base of my rib cage. I was only into the second chapter and Buck the magnificent dog, half Saint Bernard, half sheepdog, had just watched as his best friend, the dog Curly, was killed, her face ripped off by a pack of huskies. What would happen to Buck? What would happen to me? This was the second book Herr Doktor Berg had “collected” (his word, not mine. I would have said “confiscated”) from me since the beginning of spring term. Where could I find another one? A friend of Papa's had sent this one from Heidelberg when we couldn't find a German translation in Berlin.

The bell rang. School was over, but before I could get up from my desk Herr Doktor Berg was standing beside me. His hand was stretched out, ready to receive the book. I gave it to him. He made a small, snuffy sound high in his nose, took it, and began to leave. “Herr Doktor . . .” The words sounded more like raggedy tatters of phlegm in my throat. He turned around, clasping the book to his chest, and raised his eyebrows expectantly but said nothing. “Uh, Herr Doktor Berg . . . at the end of term, might I have the two books back . . . please?”

He blinked, his pale gray eyes unreadable behind the thick lenses of his spectacles. The lenses were divided not into two parts like Papa's but three parts. Three different focal lengths—one for reading close up, one for reading the blackboard, and one for distance, I imagined. Three different solutions for one problem—seeing. He blinked again, perhaps trying to fit me into a perspective, a plane. Perhaps not. I am not really that complicated. I just wanted my books back. But he said nothing as he turned and walked away.

He saw, once for all, that he stood no chance against a man with a club. He had learned the lesson, and in all his after life he never forgot it. That club was a revelation. It was his introduction to the reign of primitive law, and he met the introduction halfway. The facts of life took on a fiercer aspect; and while he faced that aspect uncowed, he faced it with all the latent cunning of his nature aroused.

-Jack London,
The Call of the Wild

 

 

 

 

R
osa was waiting just outside the main school door to walk home with me. We lived near each other in Berlin in a neighborhood called the Schöneberg, also referred to as the Bavarian Quarter, or the Jewish Switzerland. I was not sure about the Switzerland part. Perhaps it was because many people who lived in our neighborhood were well off, and Switzerland was considered wealthy compared to postwar Berlin. But the Jewish part was more understandable. There were many Jews who lived in the Schöneberg. Most were associated with the University of Berlin and the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. I was not Jewish and neither was Rosa. But Papa was a professor of astronomy at the university and held an office at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics. Rosa's mother, a widow, was a stenographer for the university. Her father had died when she was an infant. And ever since then her mother had worked in the classics department. This was very convenient, for Rosa got lots of help on her Latin homework from students in this department, and then I could get help from Rosa. I was not as good in Latin as I was in mathematics, but Rosa was lousy in math. It was a nice little deal Rosa and I had. She helped me in Latin and I helped her with math.

What Rosa was very good at was fashion. Fashion and movie stars. We were both mad for movies. Our favorite actress was an American, Joan Crawford. We'd seen her in
Montana Moon
and
Dance, Fools, Dance
. They didn't normally let children in to such movies without their parents, but Rosa's cousin Helmut was an usher at the Gloria Palast Theater. He let us sneak in. Now I was so excited because Joan Crawford was in the movie
Grand Hotel
, which had just come out in America. The movie was based on the book
People at a Hotel
, which I had received this past Christmas. It was written by one of my favorite authors, Vicki Baum. I had read it twice already. I had heard that Joan Crawford played the secretary. I was glad that Marlene Dietrich didn't get cast instead. Marlene was prettier in a way than Joan Crawford, but there was something a little scary about her, at least in the movie
The Blue Angel
when she sang that song “They call me wicked Lola.” She was very daring—sexy daring. My parents and Rosa's mother would have died if they had known we'd seen
The Blue Angel
. We'd go to matinees, then yes, we would lie to our parents and say we'd been to get ice cream with friends, or we'd gone roller skating. We made sure to take our roller skates with us on the days we used that excuse. Clever liars we were.

Ulla, my older sister, had seen
The Blue Angel
a few months back, and Mama nearly had a fit about that. But Papa had just said, “She's a university student now, Elske. At eighteen she's old enough.” Ulla got away with a lot just because she was a “university student.” One thing she was not getting away with, however, was neglecting her studies. A university student is supposed to study. That is a reasonable expectation. Nor was she practicing her violin that much. Except for me, everyone in our family was very musical. The music gene “had taken a powder” with me, as my mother would say. That means it vanished. In any case Ulla was very musical. She hoped to go to the Vienna Conservatory, where Papa and Mama had gone, to study violin when she finished her program at the University of Berlin. Mama had performed in many concerts, but now she just taught piano. Papa, before he contracted infantile paralysis—they call it polio sometimes—as a teenager, had been considered a violin prodigy. But his bow arm became useless after his illness, for all the muscles in it had been affected.

Mama and Papa were very upset with Ulla when she started to practice less. At the rate she was going with her academic studies, her degree might be in doubt, as well as her chances for the conservatory. This had all started when she met Karl. When Karl became her boyfriend, Ulla was suddenly not so interested in her studies—German literature. Her marks had slipped. Karl was a student too at the university. He studied engineering. I didn't know about his marks.

Rosa and I were coming to the corner where we normally would part ways. But the day was lovely, end of May, and the air had more than a hint of summer.

“Do you have any money?” Rosa asked suddenly.

“Not much. Just a little. Why?”

“Helmut is working this afternoon. We could catch the last bit of
The Blue Angel
and then have a coffee at the Little. The movie would be free. Didn't you say you wanted to see it again? And we could share the coffee.”