When We Meet Again (8 page)

Other than discovering that Holzkirchen was just thirty minutes from Munich, where the painting had been shipped from, I came up empty. Tomorrow morning, I would call my ex-boyfriend Scott at the
Orlando Sentinel
to ask if he could run a search for Peter A. Dahler using the newspaper’s research system; their software would scroll through driver’s license databases across the country and a few registries in Europe too. In the meantime, though, I had hit a wall.

I gave up on looking for Peter for the time being and instead entered
German POWs in U.S. during WWII
. I still couldn’t quite believe what Jeremiah had told me—that during the Second World War, German soldiers had been employed in civilian jobs all over our country. But as soon as I began scanning search results, I realized that the prison camp system across the United States was even more extensive than he had described. For the next hour, I read quickly, my surprise growing as I scanned page after page of information.

I was floored to learn that nearly four hundred thousand Germans had been imprisoned in the United States during the 1940s, but that newspaper coverage of the POW camps was limited, so many Americans didn’t even know about them. Most of the prisoners had been captured in battle or on German U-boats and had been brought to the States to work. According to the Geneva Conventions, enlisted prisoners could be used for labor, but only if they were paid and worked reasonable hours, so most were on a roughly nine-to-five schedule and received eighty cents a day, equivalent to an American private’s pay in the army at the time.

Apparently some seven hundred prison camps were dotted all across the country—in almost every state, although the majority of the prisoners were housed in the South. Many of the larger camps provided university-level courses, English instruction, libraries, church services, soccer fields, and great medical care. For soldiers who had come from an economically depressed Germany, this was, in some cases, the most comfortably they’d ever lived.

There were a handful of escape attempts and complaints from locals angry about having the enemy in their backyards, but most of the experiences I read about seemed positive. As many as five thousand Germans had enjoyed their lives in America so much that they decided to immigrate to the United States after the war. Yet two generations on, none of this was common knowledge. How could I have never known there were German prisoners here, when they’d clearly been such a vital part of the wartime economy?

My phone rang, and I sighed and snapped my laptop shut. My father’s name came up on the caller ID, and I hesitated before answering.

“Hi, Emily. I’m calling to see if you managed to get in touch with Jeremiah Beltrain.” His tone was all business, which made me feel surprisingly sad. There was a part of me—a foolish part, admittedly—that was hoping for more. Hadn’t my father been trying to make amends for years? Hadn’t I finally let him in the door a little bit? Perhaps his brusqueness should have been a relief—after all, I was the one determined to put up walls. Instead, I felt let down.

“Actually, I made a trip down to Belle Creek, where Grandma Margaret grew up, earlier today.”

“Belle Creek? But that’s hours away, isn’t it?”

“Jeremiah said he wanted to meet in person, and I didn’t see any reason not to. Anyhow, he had some answers for us.” I took a deep breath. “From what he told me, it appears that your father might have been a German prisoner of war.”

“You’re saying my father was a Nazi?” He sounded horrified.

“No,” I said quickly. “Or—I suppose it’s possible, but I don’t think that’s a conclusion we can draw. According to what I’ve read so far, and what Jeremiah said, the majority of the enlisted men who were captured and brought to the States didn’t identify with the Nazi Party. Most were just young men who had no choice but to fight for their country.”

“But . . . I don’t understand.” His voice sounded hollow. “What were Germans doing over here during the war?”

I quickly recounted what Jeremiah had said, then I explained what I’d just learned about the prevalence of German POWs in the United States.

“You’re telling me that there were four hundred
thousand
POWs here?” he interrupted.

“It was news to me too.”

My father was silent for a moment. “So what on earth happened? How did my mother wind up getting involved with a German prisoner? Who was he?”

“His name was Peter Dahler. It sounds like they were in love. Jeremiah said that both he and Grandma Margaret thought that Peter was a good man.”

My father choked on a laugh. “A good man? Good men don’t wind up in prison camps, seducing local girls.”

“I don’t think it was like that.” I didn’t know why I was defending Peter Dahler; he obviously hadn’t turned out to be such a great guy in the end. But something about the painting and the note that had come with it made me believe there was more to the story.

“So Jeremiah is positive that this Peter fellow is my father?” His voice cracked on the last word, and I realized for the first time how much this was bothering him. “How could he—?” My father trailed off in midsentence, and I closed my eyes, knowing exactly what he was going to say.
How could he vanish like that?
He cleared his throat, obviously aware of his near-stumble, and tried again. “So now what? Mystery solved?”

“Not at all. If Peter Dahler left your mother and never looked back, what explanation is there for the painting? I have the feeling we’ve only scratched the tip of the iceberg here.”

“Maybe that’s far enough,” my father said softly. “Maybe there’s a reason your grandmother didn’t want us poking into this.”

“Actually, I think she’d want us to know the truth,” I said. “I’m just not sure she knew it herself.”

Myra dropped by for a drink that night at nine thirty, after she’d put her daughter, Samantha, to bed. Her husband had been happy to stay home on their couch watching football, and Myra had practically begged me over the phone to give her an excuse to get out of the house. We lived four blocks from each other in the historic Colonialtown neighborhood just east of downtown Orlando, where the homes dated back to the 1920s and the streets were tree-lined and filled with joggers and dog walkers.

“Sometimes, the two of them just drive me crazy,” she said, settling into an Adirondack chair on my front porch as I handed her a glass of chardonnay. She took a long sip as I sat down on the chair beside her. “I mean, if I have to hear Jay say one more word about how great the New England Patriots are, I might actually have to strangle him. And Samantha is in this phase now where she refuses to go to bed at her bedtime, because she’s afraid she’s missing whatever else is going on in our household. Apparently in her four-year-old brain, the moment the lights are out in her bedroom, the living room turns into a full-on disco filled with
Sesame Street
characters.”

I laughed and clinked glasses with her. “Now I have a mental image of you doing the hustle with Big Bird.”

“Nah, I only dance with Elmo.” She smiled, and I felt a little stab of pain in my heart as I thought about all I’d missed out on with my own child.

I shook my head and forced a smile. “So you’ll never believe where I was today.”

“Somewhere more exciting than the
Sesame Street
disco?”

I laughed and recapped the arrival of the painting, my meeting with my dad, and my visit with Jeremiah. When I finished, Myra was staring at me, her eyes wide.

“I don’t even know where to begin,” she said. “I mean, you voluntarily reached out to your
dad
? That’s huge. And you’re finding out that sweet little Grandma Margaret had some kind of sordid love affair with a German prisoner?”

“I don’t know that it was sordid, exactly.”

She waved me off. “Don’t rain on my parade, lady. This is splashier than a soap opera. Seriously, though, what are you going to do next? You have to find this Peter guy!”

“I know.” I avoided her gaze as I added, “I’m going to call Scott in the morning to ask for his help.”

“Scott,” she said finally, her voice flat. “Scott Caruso, who dumped you last year because, according to him, you didn’t have enough time to dedicate to him.”

“Yes.” I cringed.

“Scott, who had a new girlfriend within a week. After dating you for seven months.”

“I was never really that serious about him anyhow.” I avoided her gaze.

She sighed. “But when are you serious about anyone, Emily?”

“So now you’re on Scott’s side?”

She snorted. “Hardly. You know I never thought he was right for you. I wanted to throw a party when the two of you broke up. But you have to admit, in the whole time I’ve known you, you’ve never really thrown yourself into any relationship. You just kind of coast along, waiting for it to end.”

I shrugged and looked out at the darkness beyond my front porch. How could I tell her that the last time I’d really loved someone was eighteen years ago, when I was head over heels in love with Nick? I’d always thought I’d find someone else who I felt that way about, but half a lifetime later, I was still looking—and still thinking of the high school boyfriend I’d walked away from. Clearly there was something wrong with me. “Can we change the subject?” I muttered.

Myra gave me a look. “Why not? We always do.”

I ignored the dig. “Okay, so I’ve been thinking about this supposed grandfather of mine all day. I just can’t piece it together. My grandmother was such a cautious person, and she always seemed to know when someone wasn’t a good person. The thing is, I can’t figure out how she’d judge this Peter Dahler guy so incorrectly. If what Jeremiah said was accurate, she was completely in love with him, and then he just dropped off the face of the planet.”

“First of all, you have to remember that your grandmother was basically just a kid at the time. What was she, eighteen or nineteen? Think of all the dumb decisions we made at that age.”

I nodded and looked away. Did sleeping with Nick count as a dumb decision? Or was it just the leaving that was the stupidest thing I’d ever done? “I guess.”

“And who’s to say she was cautious back then?” Myra continued. “Maybe that experience changed her. Maybe this Peter guy was responsible for making her a different person.”

“
Do you really think one bad experience has the power to change a person’s character that way?”

“I think that
if you love someone enough and they hurt you deeply, it can change you forever.”

I swallowed hard, thinking for the first time that Peter Dahler leaving my grandmother had a certain parallel to the way I’d left Nick. But maybe Peter Dahler had had his reasons, like I had. Maybe he’d never meant to hurt my grandmother. Maybe he’d been trying to do the right thing and had only realized later that he’d made the biggest mistake of his life. When I thought of it that way, the note with the painting made more sense. “I think I have to find out what happened,” I said, glancing at Myra.

“I agree that it’s worth trying to track down an explanation,” Myra said slowly. “After all, the painting has to mean
something,
right? But you have a lot on your plate now. Don’t you need to be going after some more freelance work? Figuring out your next move?”

“I have some money in savings, and I haven’t taken a real vacation in years. Maybe this is worth taking a little time for. And who knows? Maybe at the end of it, I’ll have learned something. Maybe I can write one of those first-person pieces for
Redbook
or something. Or one of those Modern Love essays for the
New York Times
. I’ve always wanted to write for them.”

“I just don’t want you getting hurt.” She paused. “I mean, are you planning to involve your father in this?”

I looked away. “He
is
involved, isn’t he? I mean, this is his history even more than it’s mine.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to roll out the red carpet for him to hurt you like he did when you were a kid.”

“You think I’m making a mistake,” I said softly.

“Are you?”

I shrugged but didn’t say anything. I didn’t know the answer.

“No offense,” she said after a moment, her tone a little gentler, “but your family is already a bit of a mess. Who knows what you’ll find out? And talking to your dad right now, Emily? I just don’t know. Maybe there’s something to be said for the past remaining in the past.”

I considered this for a moment. “But the thing is, the past never really stays in the past, does it? You can’t bury it, because it influences everything.”

“Are you quoting your column at me right now?”

“I just have the feeling that figuring out what happened will change my life somehow.”

Myra looked at me for a long time before speaking. “Or maybe the best way to change your life is to look inside yourself. But that’s harder to do, isn’t it?”

“Emily? Geez, it’s been a while,” Scott said when he answered my call just before eleven that evening, after Myra had gone home.

“I hope I’m not calling too late.”

“Nah, you know me. I’m a night owl.”

“I remember.” It was one of the problems that had plagued our short relationship. I liked to get up early to work, so on weeknights, I was usually in bed by ten thirty. Scott, on the other hand, loved to go out, and he often got frustrated when I told him I’d prefer to turn in. I was always a zombie the next day when I stayed out late, whereas Scott seemed to thrive on refueling with multiple cups of Starbucks in the morning.

“So what’s up?” Scott asked. “I was just headed out to Casey’s, actually. Dan is playing there tonight. You remember him?”

“Yeah. Tell him hi for me.” Dan was a friend of Scott’s and a talented local musician who often played acoustic guitar at Scott’s favorite bar. “So . . . I was actually calling to ask you a favor.”

“A favor, hmm?” Scott’s tone had turned playful. “It’s going to cost you.”

“Are you flirting with me?”

He laughed. “So what if I am?”

“I thought you were dating Lila.”

“We broke up a few months ago. I’m single again, in case that information interests you.” Yes, he was definitely flirting. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I was still attracted to him, but we had obviously crashed and burned the first time around. Wasn’t that enough to warrant keeping my distance now?