Winter Passing (15 page)

An aunt who’d rocked Grandma Celia, her daddy who’d wiped tears from her cheeks—somewhere like this they died. People, real people—parents, teachers, lovers, woodworkers, travelers, photographers.

Why had Darby never thought of them? In school, her class had done family trees and reports. Several of her friends were fascinated with their pasts and studied at great length. Darby hadn’t had the interest. She did the work required, learned the basics of what had happened, but that was all. History was history and not a place for her to look. You couldn’t take a picture of yesterday, only of today.

One of her worst school experiences was when her teacher learned she had family who perished in the Holocaust. He was fascinated and wanted her to do a family study for her final report. “You’re a child of Holocaust survivors and victims. Which camps? Were they Jewish?”

She’d never been embarrassed about her Jewish blood until she met a friend’s surprised questions.

“You’re Jewish?”

“A little, just like I’m Austrian, Danish, Cherokee, and a bunch of other things.”

Darby hadn’t noticed many racial tensions or prejudice in her small town. She’d never quite understood it and became even more confused when she was the victim.

“Well, I’m glad I don’t have Jew in me,” the girl said.

“When did I become a Jew?”

But that was only a passing scene in the myriad of high school and college events. Darby buried it and hoped her classmates did also. She had many friends and was involved in student government, French club, the yearbook—as photographer, of course. Yet as she stood in the place where her own flesh and blood had died, she finally wondered and wanted answers. Was it simply self-absorption, or a partial reaction to the unspoken silence within her home about past events? Or had Darby herself somehow resisted, knowing the steps she now took were the requirement for such interest?

She wished she could travel back in time and help the ten thousand individuals in each mass grave. That she could tell them, “Stay alive, stay alive. In sixty more years, you’ll see that Mauthausen and all the other camps are only museums. Tours will walk through and point to your grave unless you can keep living.” And then make it happen.

After walking the length and width of the camp, Darby entered the museum. Two exhibitions were displayed in the long, narrow building. She sat with several others, watching the Mauthausen film that played every hour with different languages in different rooms. The images and information numbed her as she wondered if one set of those hollow eyes that stared from the black-and-white screen would recognize her as their descendant. Did they point and say, “There’s my great-granddaughter. She’s come to save us a few decades too late”?

Darby left the dark viewing room for the exhibit “Austrians in the Nazi Concentration Camps of Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau, Ravensbrück, Sachsenhausen, and the Theresienstadt Ghetto.” After that, it was the exhibition on “The Mauthausen Concentration Camp and its Sub-Camps.”

All of a sudden Darby wondered not about the victims, but about the men in SS and Gestapo uniforms. Germans, Austrians, farmers, banker’s sons, poets, and woodworkers—they were men just like their victims and yet not like them at all. Darby stared at the photographs. Frozen eyes stared back.

Where are you now? Are you burning in some kind of hell? Did you finally see yourself before you died? Or are you still living, still hating, or still hiding? Maybe you there are the old man in Hallstatt raking his leaves. Or maybe instead he’s the one you didn’t get to kill.

Desperate to find something in their eyes—an evil or darkness, or even a glimpse of shadow—Darby moved closer. But the photographs—what she trusted to capture the moment—failed her. For there was nothing to be found. Nothing to distinguish an SS from Gestapo from soldier from civilian. Nothing to show a higher or lower degree of guilt or hatred. One man waved at her from the back of a truck; a mischievous grin sparkled from his face. In life he could be someone who’d flirt and ask her for a date or throw a football with the neighborhood children. In the photo he sat in the back of a truck brimming with human corpses.

Numbers, statistics, and maps depicted the facts, but the faces in the photographs argued it couldn’t be true. They were just men and boys. They couldn’t have experimented with that man’s life or tortured that poor woman’s body. Darby read a quote by a United States colonel, Seibel, about the camp’s liberation: “Mauthausen was a reality . . . as was the brutal and inhumane treatment of human beings by human beings.”

Examining each photo, she read in her book the English version. When she saw a display titled “Guard file cards,” she stopped, remembering the information Sophie Gerringer had given her. She took the paper from her purse and searched the chart.

There. Darby couldn’t believe it. There was the name. Bruno Weiler. It was difficult to understand what must have been guard information, and she could not find an English version. But she did find his name and “Hallstatt, OS,” meaning he must have been from Hallstatt. There were several dates on the file, including 1940 and 1943. Did that mean he’d been a guard here during that time?

Darby left the museum, wondering what to do next. Should she seek to discover what happened to this man after the war? Bruno Weiler could have seen Tatianna before she died. He may also have seen her other family members. But would he still be alive today?

Once outside, Darby noticed a stairway leading downward. A group moved down it, speaking in hushed tones. If it was an English-speaking group, perhaps the guide could help her. Darby took the steps to the bottom, into an unlit room. The group had moved into the next room, but her feet stood still. There was no need for a guide or tour book to know where she stood. The tiled walls were clean, though the grout had been scrubbed till crumbly. Above her head piping crisscrossed the ceiling and faucets hung, faucets which had never felt water push through the spouts. Darby noticed the thick doors, one behind her, one at the other end. She stood in a gas chamber.

At this realization, her heart began to pound. The doors felt like they were closing. She had to force herself to breathe slowly and deeply. She saw hands clawing the tile walls, children crying, and men and women screaming. Her head said to run, but her feet wouldn’t move. Darby wanted to vomit, but not even tears would come. Finally, her feet did move. She went numbly toward the opposite door, only to find a labyrinth of other shower rooms and then the ovens.

She stared into the open mouths of two black ovens. A bouquet of silk flowers rested on a long, iron basket that pushed corpses into the ovens to turn flesh into ashes. Darby imagined the systematic machine, cooking, removing, cleaning, devouring. One human had lovingly buttoned a young man’s sweater and brushed his hair—and someone else had put his body into that oven.

I feel you are still here.

Memorial plaques and photographs covered the oven room’s walls. One had several toy cars and a plastic doll on the floor in front of it. Darby read the French words
Enfants morts
. A French community’s plaque for their children who died at Mauthausen.

The horror was so intense that she had to look away from the plaques, but she was drawn to the wall of photographs. The smiles and faces of men and women, young and old. It seemed she could take an SS guard’s photo upstairs and easily replace it here, for they were all flesh and blood, men and women. Only one had chosen to mutilate his brother, and the other was mutilated.

I have to get myself together. I need to focus on my purpose for coming here.

But Darby couldn’t shake the sense of blood beneath her feet. And not just blood from veins alone. But the blood of hope, love, dreams, tomorrow—the blood of life poured into this ground. And that blood was her blood also.

She turned back toward the plaques on the walls and read each memorial in search of names. And there she found it, written in English:
Remembrance of the Lange family. Loved for all eternity.
Darby touched the engraved writing and hurried out.

The roadway moved too slowly beneath her feet. Through the stone archway, an echo chased her quick passage down the wide stairway to the last courtyard on the lower deck, then across the high-walled courtyard and out the iron door. She breathed more deeply but didn’t halt her pace. She was free to leave—a simple act not granted to thousands of others.

Darby knew from the horror of this place she would never be the same. She also knew that SS guard Bruno Weiler, who had known her family and been their captor, must be found. Whether he was dead or alive.

Mauthausen stayed with Darby. It followed her like a cloud around a mountain, covering, blocking, shielding rays of light. What she’d left with was an increased determination to find answers, and to find Bruno Weiler. But as days turned into more than a week of searching in Linz and back in Salzburg, Darby’s determination wavered. Her newfound love for Austria grew weary as her eyes turned toward documents, museum information, book research. She returned to Salzburg with more untied ends than when she’d left. She didn’t return to the Salzburg Cozy Hotel, but instead found a quiet place on a back street in the Old City. Time clicked toward her departure home and she found little success, some due to her language inability, some to lack of knowledge in seeking her answers. How could she find a man sixty years after he was last seen? Her biggest help had been Professor Voss, but he was in Dublin and wouldn’t return until after she was due to leave for home.

Darby considered staying longer. She felt so close, but so close to what? What she’d come for now seemed unclear. Her focus had been to find Tatianna or a way to fulfill her promise to Grandma Celia, but now she wanted more answers.

She wondered about Celia’s family, her family, and what their exact fate had been at Mauthausen. Darby also wondered about her grandfather, Gunther Müller. Where had he died in Austria? Was there a grave for him?

Inquiries into the Mauthausen Camp did yield some information. She learned that a woman named Celia Lange Müller, along with a group of other prisoners, had been killed by firing squad on the date of August 11, 1941. Then she’d been put into the ovens.

A few days before going home, Darby called her mother to pose the idea of remaining in Austria. Instead, she found the old life drawing her back. Her business partner, Clarise, had called in hopes that Darby had returned early. Her mother was marking the days on the calendar until her return. It looked as if her time was up. Darby consoled herself that in a way she’d done as her grandmother wished. She was certain Tatianna had died at Mauthausen. She had taken Celia’s name and her place. Sure, there wasn’t any hard evidence. But without solid proof, she couldn’t get any records changed to Tatianna’s name. And was that what mattered? She knew the truth and so did Grandma Celia and Tatianna. And Grandma’s God knew. Did the actual names really need changing? Suddenly, Darby felt tired throughout her body, mind, and spirit. Home sounded even better than when she’d gone to youth camp and cried every day until they let her go home early.

With her heart turned toward home, Darby made a final phone call in Salzburg—one she’d avoided for weeks.

“Hello, Darby,” Brant said when he picked up the line. “I’ve wondered how you are doing.”

She didn’t like the jumble of emotions she felt when hearing his voice. “I’m doing well, how about you?”

“Very well.” He was quiet for a moment. “Would you like to meet?”

“No, but thank you. I’m leaving in the morning, but I have a question for you.”

“You’re going home?”

“Yes. I went to Hallstatt but didn’t find whatever it was you wanted me to see. Will you now tell me what it was?”

“You didn’t go to the cemetery?” He sounded surprised.

“Yes, but you didn’t give me any more information than that.”

“You didn’t find her headstone?”

“Are you saying there is a headstone for Celia Müller?”

“Yes.”

“But she was killed at Mauthausen. There would be no body to bury.”

Brant hesitated. “I know that. But there is a headstone, for the memory, I suppose.”

“Was this information in your confidential files? I didn’t see one with her name on it.”

“Perhaps my files were wrong. I must apologize.”

“Well, it was a good trip anyway.”

“So have you discovered anything?”

Darby paused. “Yes, but nothing that can prove or disprove who my grandmother was. And now it’s time for me to return home.”

“I wish you the best, Darby.”

She caught sincerity in his tone. “I wish you the best also, Brant.”

On the morning Darby left Austria, she felt no better than the day she’d arrived. As the plane lifted from Austrian soil, she watched the mountains rush away below her. Since no one was there to tell her good-bye, Darby left as she’d arrived—alone. Her heart turned toward home, to her grandmother’s place and her own apartment in Redding. The things so familiar made her homesick and ready to be there. Once back, she’d discover if the shadows could be buried.

“Good-bye, Salzburg,” she whispered. “I’m going home.”

When Darby’s feet touched United States soil, relief washed throughout her entire body. America—home of the free and the brave. America—the Statue of Liberty, television in English, and nonsmoking airports. Darby wasn’t a foreigner here. She didn’t have to ask anyone to “
Sprechen Sie Englisch
.” The feeling of home beamed strong and good, for the first few hours.

Her mother hugged Darby tightly as they met in the airport and said, “I’m so happy you’re home safe,” about ten times before they’d even left the San Francisco city limits. Not that they moved very quickly. The throngs of cars moved like a continuous line of ants; the traffic hadn’t changed while she was gone.

They drove Highway 101 north with the world unchanged except for the vineyards and trees turning toward winter barrenness. It surprised Darby to realize how easily life continued on with little change, even though she was completely changed. The grasp on life she’d hoped to reclaim by returning home was quickly running like water through her fingers. Every mile closer to Grandma Celia’s, Darby felt more like a stranger, even in her hometown. It must be fatigue, jet lag, she told herself, and the overwhelming relief from the last month of stress. Surely she’d awaken the next morning renewed and happy to leave Austria and its mysteries behind. She couldn’t live forever as a displaced person wherever she went. Perhaps some buried secrets were right where they belonged.

“I’m so glad you’re home safe,” her mother said again as she unlocked the front door.

Darby smiled wearily.

“I have dinner in the Crock-Pot, some new Mr. Bubble, and the heating blanket will be warmed up in no time.”

“That sounds wonderful. Mom, why don’t you come to Austria and take care of me like this?”

Her mom stopped in the kitchen. “You’re going back to Austria?”

“Did I say that?” Darby rubbed her eyes and sat on a bar stool. “No, I’m not going back. At least, I’m probably not.”

“How could you consider it? I thought you’d gone, done your work, and now you’re home.”

“I didn’t finish anything, only found more trails. But you’d know that if you’d asked. I noticed you had a dozen questions about my flight, but not one about what I found there.”

“You’re tired,” her mother said as she turned away, “so I didn’t want to grill you. I figured you’d tell me if there was really important news.”

“It’s all important news, I think. But there’s so much I don’t know and have no idea if I’ll ever know. Aren’t you curious? This is your family and heritage, even more than mine. Both your parents were there. One never made it out.”

“I’m well aware of that. Why do you think I don’t like my daughter going?” She yanked two bowls from the cupboard and closed the door loudly. “Can we argue on a different day, Darby?”

She watched her mother shield herself in activity, putting Darby’s luggage near the hallway, getting a tray and spoon from the cabinets. “I’m sorry. We’ll talk later. What’s in the Crock-Pot?”

Her mother lifted the lid. “Ragout stew, of course.”

“And my favorite baking-soda biscuits?”

“Yes.” Carole smiled.

“Thanks, Mom.” Darby wrapped her arms around her mother from behind. “I’m happy to be home safe.”

“Go wash up, young lady,” Carole said, laughing. She grabbed a dish towel and flicked it at her. “I’m glad you’re home too.”

Darby carried her luggage down the hall toward her old bedroom. She paused at Grandma’s doorway. Everything looked the same as when she’d left, except for a few boxes in the corner. She walked to the dresser and touched the carved wood box. The lid to the Pond’s cold cream bottle was askew, so she unscrewed the top and smelled the white lotion inside. One bottle of moisturizer was turned upside down to retrieve every last drop. “Every seed of waste can grow a tree of poverty,” Grandma would say, her voice almost real inside the room. If her grandmother had been there, she’d have ushered Darby inside and demanded every detail of the trip. As tired as Darby felt, she’d share all the discoveries and new questions she had and sort it out with someone who cared and wanted to know. But Grandma Celia wasn’t waiting anxiously to hear her stories today, or any day. Darby hadn’t quite understood that until now. Throughout Darby’s travels, Grandma’s presence had been with her. Now Darby had returned to the fact that her grandmother was gone, forever gone.

Darby was jarred back to reality by an early-morning call from her business partner. She was still in bed when her mother brought the phone.

“Welcome home, and now get back here! We’re flooded, and we also got contracts on the Christmas Show at the Civic Auditorium and on Hartley’s Thankgiving Party. It’s time to come home, girl—mentally and physically.”

“I’ll be there later today.”

“Thank God you didn’t get stranded in an airport somewhere. I’ve been so stressed. We’d have had to cancel on the Hartley’s Thanksgiving Party or something and that would never have been forgiven and I’ve been so worried, and . . . well, I’ll whine and moan about all our woes when you get here.”

“Good-bye, Clarise,” Darby said with her eyes closed.

“Hurry! We’re desperate up here.”

The four-hour drive to the north end of the long Sacramento Valley gave Darby time to remind herself of who she had been before flying off to Austria. Her life in Redding revolved around the photography studio, and not much more. And this was one of the busiest times of year, time for her to put her shoulder to the wheel despite the dust of her journey still surrounding her. Jet lag clung hard with nothing sounding better than cozy sheets and her mother’s stew, but she was a co-owner of the business and needed to fulfill that obligation. She’d left her responsibilities for her grandmother’s quest, and home had called her back.

Darby topped a rise on I–5 north to see two familiar volcanic mountains surrounding the Redding Valley. Mount Shasta resembled an ice cream cone on the northern horizon, while smaller Mount Lassen sparkled with white snowcaps in the east. As she turned into her apartment complex overlooking the wide Sacramento River, it felt like years had passed since she’d been home. Then the inside of her apartment appeared so changed, Darby wondered if she were in the right place. Her furniture looked familiar, but the decor was far from her own with a fuzzy sheepskin rug, East Indian blankets, and carved wooden sculptures dressing the room. Darby had been thankful for a temporary roommate to water her plants while she was gone, but she hadn’t expected Julie to become permanent. Her home was her solitude, and Darby shared that sparingly. However, since she was single, everyone thought Darby the perfect target for any college-aged girl in need of a place to stay. Julie, Clarise’s niece, was finishing her semester at the local college before transferring to a university. Her roommate had moved out, and Julie couldn’t afford the place on her own. Clarise had said the usual line: “Only for a short time, and then you won’t be so alone.”

Darby walked inside, stepping over a shoe and some laundry in the hall, and opened her bedroom door. She peered inside, glad to see her Ansel Adams black-and-white photos still on the wall along with her flannel comforter atop the pine four-poster bed. Darby only had time to dump her luggage on the floor and walk out.

Five minutes later, she pulled her tan Jeep into the parking lot of the small shopping center. It seemed a hundred years had passed since she’d last stood in front of “Hanrey and Evans Photography,” but she didn’t feel the rush of excitement she once had upon seeing her name on the window. This was her world, her big dream. Yet suddenly it appeared insignificant in the wake of losing her grandmother, walking the grounds of Mauthausen, and peering into the past. Coming back to normal life might take some time.

Darby stepped into the cozy showroom and paused. No one waited on the sage green chairs or paged through their portfolio binders. Today must be one of the scheduled workdays Darby had implemented the previous year during their busy seasons. It worked better to schedule shoots three days a week and leave the rest for full work days; their production increased this way. Darby took a breath in the calm of the showroom, then walked toward the back work areas.

Clarise popped up. “Oh, I thought I heard the bell. Thank goodness you’re back. Come on, come on, let’s get you in here.”

Darby was surprised to see her partner with auburn, curly hair. When she’d last seen Clarise, her hair was straight and blonde. The auburn appeared more natural with Clarise’s olive skin, but the puffed-up hair would take some getting used to. Darby barely had time to look at her partner before Clarise began updating her and delegating their commitments. The holiday crunch had descended. Clarise chose the Hartley’s Thanksgiving Party because, after all, she could take her husband and they needed a date night. Darby got the Christmas Arts and Craft Fair—sticky kids, noise, and probably the same grouchy elf as every year—for after all, she
had
been on vacation for two months.

Thanksgiving came and went with Darby’s mother volunteering at a shelter, dishing up mashed potatoes and gravy, while Darby worked all day except for an evening stop at a friend’s house. At least she didn’t have to worry about her mother or feel guilty that she hadn’t spent their first holiday without Grandma Celia together.

“Say Santa Claus,” she found herself repeating behind her camera lens days later. “Don’t cry, honey. What do you want for Christmas?”

While Darby usually loved kids and Christmas and capturing the perfect shot on Santa’s lap, this year she felt near tears, along with the children. The same grouchy elf had arrived like the ghost of Christmas past and herded children on his assembly line. Santa was more interested in Darby than the children, even asking her for a date on his break. It was the first time she’d been asked on a date in months—and by a Santa who smelled like cigarettes.

The days and evenings flew by, and Darby didn’t feel any happier. She had arrived back in the States like Dorothy, clicking her heels together saying, “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.” But Darby wondered about the rest of the story. Was little Dorothy content to be back in Kansas? Did she grow up, marry a farmer, and age against the rolling plains? Or did she remember that once she wore red, magic shoes—shoes that could kill a witch and possess more magic than all of Oz? Could she return home and exist with Oz in her mind? Or would dreams of yellow brick roads and an emerald city call her to return?

Darby didn’t know about Dorothy, but she knew that the feeling of missing something grew with every moment. Perhaps she’d changed too much to stay home.

“I’ve waited long enough,” Richter said. He paced the park walkway while Ingrid sat on a bench, feeding pigeons. “How can you be so calm about this? The woman went back to the States. Brant and Darby did not connect their information as you thought they would. How will we find the heirlooms now?”

Ingrid continued to drop crumbs of bread. “I said I hoped the two would connect their information. We simply don’t know what exact pieces Brant knows and what this woman knows. We do know she’s Celia Müller’s granddaughter.”

“That’s another thing I want to know. How did you know she was Celia Müller’s granddaughter? And how did you know for me to look for her to come to Austria?”

“There are some things I’ll keep to myself, for now. I will say that I didn’t know for certain she’d come. At least, not for sure. But the pull of riches lures everyone.”

“Then why did she return to the States?”

“I don’t know. I thought Darby Evans and Brant would discover the truth, but he is far more suspicious than I thought. Yet I know we are closer than before.”

“How can you say that?” Richter wanted to take her bread crumbs and toss them away. “We have nothing, and I don’t see how this plan is ever going to work. If we wait too long, the treasures will be found and claimed.”

“Yes, but there’s no other way.”

“I can think of other ways.”

“Patience, my grandson.”

“I have debts that aren’t waiting patiently. Perhaps you can wait a lifetime, but I can’t. And I won’t.” A flurry of pigeons scattered to flight as Richter stalked away.