Spirit Eyes (16 page)

The only injustice was that Mrs. Eberstark wasn’t alive to get her just dues, but Ruth had a feeling, wherever she was, she was paying the price for her evil ways.

Best of all, though, Paul pulled through. The bullet hadn’t hit anything vital. He was in the hospital for a few days and released.

Mr. Eberstark’s son, the future vice president, dropped out of the race in absolute disgrace. Along with his sister, the big time New York Lawyer, he faced criminal charges from tax fraud to possible murder.

A lawyer worked to track down, to the last nickel, all the families that the Eberstarks swindled. The meticulous records they kept of their dealings made it easy to find the relatives of the people they had sent off to the camps and reimburse them. It was only a small balm for what they’d really lost in those times, but it made Ruth feel good to know the money was going back to the rightful owners.

The most shocking of all came when there was a knock on their door.

In front of them was the lawyer handling all the money. Excited that he’d already returned quite a bit of it, he had startling news for Ruth.

After they sat down, he explained exactly what he’d found out.

Going through the records, he saw a family by the name of Schuster.

“I know some Schusters,” Ruth said happily. “Maybe they’re the ones. They look like they could use the money. They’re Jewish and came from Poland after the war.” Her mouth went a mile a minute.

“Ruth, please, let me finish. I used the documents I was given and having found most of the rightful owners of the money, I was stuck on this one family. There didn’t seem to be any trail after the Schusters signed off on these contracts.

“It appears that the entire Schuster family was swindled by the Wagners, also known as Mr. And Mrs. Eberstark. Mr. Schuster had amassed a fortune, including a vacation villa and a yacht, even though he and his wife lived a very frugal, down-to-earth lifestyle. When the Nazis came to power, Mr. Schuster signed his business over to the Wagners in complete confidence that when the war was over it would all be returned to their family. You see, at that time many laws were made that hurt the Jewish community. One of them was that they could not own a company. Mr. Wagner promised to get the entire family Visas to America so they could stay safe until the war was over. However, once the documents were signed and the ink wasn’t even dry, he had the entire family shipped off to the camps.

“After the war was over, these swindlers settled here in America. They assumed everyone that they had betrayed died in the camps and they would have all their money. They felt safe with their secret. They didn’t plan on the son and daughter of the Schuster family making it out of the turmoil alive. They also didn’t plan on them moving to the United States, or for that matter, to the same town.

“I’m surmising that the son, Herschel Schuster, recognized them one night at the old German American Club. He told the owner of the club, then walked up to the Eberstarks and informed them of his plan to turn them into the authorities. Herschel, his wife and his daughter were never seen again.”

“Yes, I read about them in the library while doing research,” Ruth said.

“The thing is,” the attorney continued, “the daughter of the Schusters who survived and came to America to start fresh and clean—well, the disappearance of her brother and his family was just too much for her to bear. She hung on, though, and married an American. She had suffered horribly in the camps and having survived typhus that weakened her, she still wanted a child. Some say she lived to simply continue. To prove to the Nazis she would not be silenced and would not only survive, but leave a legacy. The sad thing is, she died in childbirth in nineteen sixty-eight.”

Ruth only half understood what he was telling her. “What are you saying? Died in childbirth? That’s the year I was born.” She gazed at him perplexed. “My mother! Are you talking about my mother?”

“Ruth, you are a Schuster. You’re the last in a very long, proud family line.”

“My mother—she was a concentration camp survivor?”

“Yes, she was.”

“I-I don’t know what to say.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “My father never spoke of any of this.”

“I doubt he knew much,” the lawyer said. “Your mother was a broken woman. She’d lost everyone…everything. I can only imagine she didn’t want to talk about it.”

“I’m half Jewish.”

“Yes.”

“Wow, tha-that’s fantastic.” She blinked away stunned, happy tears.

“Mom, does that mean we get to have Christmas and Hanukah?” Lotus said.

“Yes, I guess it does.” She burst out laughing, the first time she’d really laughed in months. She realized now why she’d been so sick and why she was having those dreams of the gray place. She was experiencing her mother’s life in the camp, the absolute hell she suffered. Almost instantly, her aches began to disappear and the chronic headache left.

“I think my mom was trying to tell me something,” Ruth said. “I think she wanted me to know how hard she fought to live, even when she felt like dying. Even,” Ruth couldn’t hold it in any longer and burst out crying. “Even when dying would have been so much easier.”
She swallowed hard, overwhelmed by the rush of opposite feelings that came with this new information. “She shared with me her greatest sorrow, so I’d know, I’d
realize, just how much I was wanted and that I was her greatest triumph. Life—mine—would never be, if she’d succumbed. It’s like life sprung from a camp of death.

Pearl and Lotus moved toward her. They sat on either side, their protective arms around her.

“I also know that she felt guilty. She thought she had betrayed her parents, but she hadn’t. She was only a scared, little girl. Her parents always understood that. They were so proud of her and how she fought to survive. Of her fighting spirit.”

Later that day the family went for a drive. Ruth wanted to go see the Schuster’s farm, but she had an odd feeling they wouldn’t be there. They turned the corner, where she’d usually see the old home, and nothing was there but overgrown weeds and a garden gone to seed. A ramshackle house, nothing like the sweet cottage, fallen into disrepair. Ruth got out for a quick look and noticed something shiny in the weeds. She picked up a silver locket, held it in her hands and got back into the car.

“Well, my sweet, Pearl. I’m glad that you at least got to meet your great grandparents. They were something weren’t they?”

“I loved them, Mommy. I knew who they were, but they asked me not to say anything. They said they are part of my watchful ancestors.” Her smile beamed from her face like a lighthouse pushing the darkness away and Ruth felt relief at the sight.

“And I’m glad you got to meet my grandma,” Pearl added.

“What?”

“The woman who gave you the talisman. She came to me one night. We talked in Chinese, even though I don’t even speak it. She told me how she gave it to you, and that I’m very loved. Not only by you and Daddy, but by my ancestors who gather around me all the time. On both sides of my family. But mostly I’m loved by my birthparents.”

Ruth waxed nostalgia. “I’ve always wondered about life. Why one woman’s absolute joy is ridden on the back of a woman in another country who had to perform the ultimate sacrifice. Or why a certain group of people were targeted with such hate and cruelty.”

“You’re talking about both our families, aren’t you, Mom?” Lotus asked. “Both ours and yours.”

“Yes, I guess I am. I’ll never understand it all, but I know one thing, just as my Grandmother Schuster taught me.”

“What?”

“Love conquers all.”

On their ride home Lotus brought up all the money that would be theirs. “What are we going to do with it?” Lotus asked.

“I know one thing,” Ruth said. “I’m not keeping it. It needs to be used for good in the world.”

“How about the orphans in China?” Pearl asked. “You said you always wanted to do more.”

“That’s true,” Ruth said. “I think half there and the other half to a foundation that helps keep the truth about the Holocaust alive. It was such a horrible time, and really not that long ago. We always have to remember the past or we are destined to repeat it.”

Ruth gazed at the locket in her hand and opened it. On the right side was a picture of a young girl, about fifteen, laughing, and smiling, full of life and hope. She was beautiful.
She was her mother.
On the left side was an engraving of the Star of David and under that was engraved the words,
Left means life. Changed, but not gone.

Mr. Eberstark was found guilty in the murder of Herschel Schuster, his wife, Anna, and daughter, Elise. When he was given a life sentence, Ruth prayed that he’d live to be at least one hundred and ten. He wasn’t tried for the murder and arson of the owner of the German American Club. It didn’t really matter. Everyone knew he did it. The owner knew too much, and the Eberstarks had him killed. Although the remains of Elise were recovered from the Adler’s basement, the bodies of the two adults had never been found. Many wanted him tried as a war criminal, but figured he wouldn’t survive a long journey. He was getting his just dues for what remained of his miserable life.

His son, Thomas Eberstark, the former senator, was given a sentence of thirty years to life for the attempted murder of Paul. His other son and daughter were ruined. The scandal and the loss of their fortune doomed them, along with their own numerous court dates.

The strangest twist was that Mrs. Eberstark was the only one in her family who knew about that particular stash of money. She was so selfish, she had kept that all for herself. She never told her husband or kids. More than likely, after they buried Elise in the basement, she snuck the rest of the treasure there. When she was dying, she mentioned to them that there was more of the treasure left, but didn’t have time to tell them where it was. That was why they badgered Pearl. Once they thought she had a way to communicate with their wife and mother, they figured she’d tell them where the treasure was.

Pearl wasn’t bothered by any more spirits. It seemed her job was done, although she wished her friend, Elise would visit. She was happy knowing that she was in a safe place
with all her relatives and at peace. Well, not all her relatives. Elise would have to wait awhile until her cousins, the Adlers, joined her and the rest of the Schuster clan on the other side. Pearl felt blessed to have such a large family of ancestors, of varying nationalities, always around her.

Lynn Hones is a wife of twenty-five years and mother of two daughters. Her house is a zoo with an Old English Sheep dog named Arthur, one Catahoola Cur Spotted Leopard dog aptly named Puddles and two rescued cats, Bella May and Phantom Marie. Formerly a cat-hater, she hangs her head in shame. She lives in a large, one hundred and sixty year old, drafty home on the shores of Lake Erie and loves nothing better than grabbing an armful of books and heading to the beach. She combs the beaches for beach glass and makes jewelry out of it, which she sells in her boutique called Hones Harbor House Gifts. A native Ohioan, she is a Buckeye fan and has been known to scream out “OH” to anyone wearing an Ohio State jersey, waiting for his or her reply of, “IO.” She loves to write and chew massive amounts of bubblegum, preferably at the same time. She’s a passionate walker and loves to refurbish furniture that is doomed to a landfill.