Bob and Jill found themselves again at the airport, this time with Peter, waiting for Rudolph Schmidt’s 2 p.m. plane to arrive. Jill looked at Bob with affection. “I’m beginning to feel bad, asking you to come with me all the time on these trips,” she said. “I could take my own car. I mean, I’m an independent woman. I have an apartment. I have a job.”
“You also have an awful experience to live through, and it’s nice to have someone to share it with.”
“Exactly.” She leaned into him.
“There he is.” Peter touched Jill’s arm and nodded at an old, straight-backed man walking through the crowd with his head held high.
While Jill had plenty of recent photographs of the Gurstadts, she had nothing of the Schmidts. Only Peter knew how Rudolph had aged. He was a rangy sort, sun burnt, almost bald and looking as though he might survive forever. Bob observed that Rudolph wore the similar turd-sucking smirk on his lips that his brother Heinrich possessed.
As they drove to Gatlinburg, Peter acted as a reluctant though polite interpreter.
“Ich arbeite noch das land,” Rudolph said with arrogance and continued, pausing to end with “Sie sind zu faul.”
“I still work the land,” Peter translated without emotion. “But these young people, they don’t care about the land. They’re too lazy.”
From glances in his rear view mirror, Bob could tell Rudolph took pleasure in making Peter repeat denigrations aimed at him.
“Gehen zum university…” Rudolph continued with relish, eyeing Peter as he spit out more accusations.
“Going to a university is the easy way to make a living,” Peter said. “Only real men can make money with sweat of their brows and their muscles.”
Bob looked over at Jill who was rolling her eyes. He suppressed a grin. At the Schmidts’ home Bob told Rudolph through Peter that they thought he’d want to visit with his brother before going to his hotel in Knoxville.
“Es nacht keinen interscheidzu mir.”
“It makes no difference to me,” Peter said.
Greta greeted them at the door, first nodding to her brother-in-law without much enthusiasm and then focusing on Bob and Jill with a worried look on her face.
“The lawyer, Mr. Holt, is coming over. Now he wants to talk to me about what I will say in court.”
“Don’t worry about it, Grandma,” Jill said, putting her arm around Greta and squeezing. “Remember, Mr. Holt is on our side. He wants to help keep grandpa in the United States.”
“Mr. Schmidt, here’s your brother,” Bob announced.
Heinrich looked up from his easy chair; his expression did not change upon seeing Rudolph for the first time in fifty years. His brother sat without ceremony on the sofa. They scrutinized each other as two boxers would, face to face in the middle of a ring.
“Fett,” Rudolph at last said with contempt.
“Sack du knocken,” Heinrich shot back.
“What did they say?” Bob asked Peter.
“Rudolph told Heinrich he was fat.” Peter shook his head. “Heinrich told him he was a bag of bones.”
“Grandpa,” Jill said, “we’ll leave you two to catch up while Bob and I help grandma fix some coffee.”
Peter surveyed the living room and pulled out his pipe.
“I think I’ll have a smoke outside.” He looked at Bob, his eyes blank. “The weather is pleasant.”
He went outside while Bob, Jill and Greta walked through the kitchen door, leaving Heinrich and Rudolph silent and staring at different walls. Greta first went to the stove to warm the coffee pot, but burst into tears and sank into a chair, pulling out a handkerchief to daub her eyes.
“I don’t know why you’re so upset, Grandma,” Jill said, sitting beside her.
“Remember, Mrs. Schmidt, Jeff Holt’s on our side.” Bob sat across the dining table from her.
“I don’t know what to say.” Greta shook her head. “Helga, she told me Mr. Holt seemed like a nice young man to her and that I should trust him and should do what he says. I don’t know. Maybe I could tell them what they want to hear, what they should hear.”
“No, Grandma.” Jill touched her hand. “Tell the truth. You’ll get in trouble if you don’t tell the truth.”
“I know.” Greta looked up and smiled through her tears. She wiped her eyes and furrowed her brow. “It would be different if I could talk about Oberbach.” She laughed. “I could tell them all about Oberbach.”
“Tell us about Oberbach,” Bob said in a soft voice.
Jill gazed at him with a smile.
“Oberbach was, oh, what is that word? They use it all of the time in those travel shows. Right next to the mountains.”
“Nestled?” he offered.
“Ah, yes, nestled, that’s a good word, yes. Oberbach was nestled in the hills of Bavaria, near Black Forest. Ah, my Oberbach, it was beautiful. In my mind I see it as clearly as I see this town. It reminds me of Oberbach, this Gatlinburg.”
“It was a tourist town?” Bob asked, hearing the pot beginning to boil which brought back memories of sitting in the kitchen with his mother as she prepared herself an afternoon cup of coffee.
“Oh, no,” Jill answered. “It was a logging town.” She grinned. “I’ve heard about Oberbach. It wasn’t a tourist town.” She paused to wriggle her nose. “I smell the coffee.”
“But it could have been,” Greta said in defense of her hometown as she stood to go to the stove. “It had many beautiful buildings, all many pretty colors.” Her hands, now steadier, poured out three cups. “My family’s house was prettiest.”
“It’s in the picture on the living room wall, isn’t it?” Bob said.
“Yes. That picture, though, it doesn’t show how really pretty it was.” She carried a cup over and put it in front of Bob. “I know what you’re doing, young man; you’re trying to take my mind off Mr. Holt’s visit.” She patted him on the shoulder. “You’re a good boy.”
“I told you, Grandma,” Jill said as she carried the other two cups to the table.
Greta’s smile faded as she sat down, lifted her cup and glanced away.
“If memories are too painful, you don’t have to say anything,” he said to her. “A wife doesn’t have to testify against her husband.”
Waving her hand, Greta looked at Bob and put on a brave front, but her voice was soft, almost a whisper.
“I didn’t know how bad the Gestapo was.” She emitted a sad little laugh. “It’s funny. Back then I was so proud of Heinrich in his uniform. I was somebody important too, you know. At least until the war ended.”
Jill sat, sipped her coffee and said, “You don’t have to say all of this for us.”
“But I want you to know.” Greta shook her head. “I didn’t know about Jews being killed. Please believe me.” She looked into Jill’s eyes. “Your mama, she blames me for that. I know she does.”
“Mom doesn’t blame you,” Jill said, trying to soothe her.
“What Heinrich did,” Greta said, looking at the door to her living room, “I only shudder to think. When he went out at night with his men, he didn’t tell me what they were doing. I don’t want to know.”
“Did you understand why you had to leave Germany after the war?” Bob asked.
“No.” Greta shook her head in sadness. “I couldn’t figure out why we must leave. Helga, she didn’t have to leave. I didn’t think Americans were so cruel to hurt us because we lost the war.” She looked away and sighed. “But Heinrich said we had to go, so we left. First we went to Switzerland. He made a nice living carving things out of wood. Heinrich is very talented with his knife.”
“Grandma didn’t like Switzerland,” Jill said, filling in parts of the story she’d heard before.
“Not as nice as Bavaria.” Greta arched an eyebrow. “Those Swiss, so proud of their mountains, but they’re not so pretty.”
“It’s all advertising, Grandma.” Jill patted her hand.
“Then we came here.” Greta shrugged in resignation. “Gatlinburg, it’s nice, but it’s not home.”
“So you like it here?” he asked.
“Americans, they’re strange.” She frowned. “We don’t speak English good when first here. These mountain people, they acted insulted that we couldn’t speak like they did.”
“Well, only special people can talk like a hillbilly,” Bob joked in an exaggerated accent. “You know, like me.”
Greta laughed and slapped with good humor at Bob, but then she sobered.
“That didn’t make sense. If they came to Oberbach and tried to speak my language, I wouldn’t hate them because they didn’t say words right.” She sighed. “No matter. But tourists.” Greta rolled her eyes.
“Tourists are the worst,” Jill said. “Trust me. I worked in their shop during summer vacations.”
“I can imagine.” He smiled.
“They think the way we talk is funny. I talk more like German for them. I really talk English good. Except when I forget. Anyway, tourists buy more carvings when I talk funny. I don’t care. Only lately they buy made-in-Philippines junk. They don’t know anything about quality.”
Her eyes wandered, seeming to sink into fear about Heinrich’s imminent hearing in federal court. “I think I have some oatmeal raisin cookies around here someplace,” she said in a vacant voice.
“You know,” Bob said, “it’s good to talk about your worries.”
“It’s wonderful having Helga here.” Greta nodded. “I can talk to her.”
“Don’t you have friends here you could chat with?” he asked.
“Oh, a few of the women in other shops, but they move on. Few people stay as long as we have. In many ways, it was much better we didn’t have close friends. Then few could know…” Her voice trailed off and her hands clinched.
“You were afraid they’d find out about grandpa?” Jill stroked her grandmother’s arm.
“No. Not at first, because I didn’t know.” Greta stopped to look into Jill’s eyes and put her arm around her. “You do believe me, don’t you? I didn’t know.”
“Yes, Grandma.” Jill smiled. “I believe you.”
“As I heard and read more about Hitler,” Greta continued, resting back in her chair, “his Nazis, his Gestapo, the more I worried about Heinrich. As the years went by, I heard of this man, what was his name?”
“Eichmann,” Bob said.
“Jews, they caught him and tried him and hanged him. Others, then, were caught. A housewife in New York, I think, was sent back to Germany for trial. That scared me. Not for me. I knew I was innocent. But Heinrich, he might lose his citizenship and get kicked out of the country. Edward, he would be so hurt. I could tell he knew. He asked questions, but I told him nothing.”
“How did you feel when dad changed his name?”
“Oh, we had fights.” Laughing, she showed her white, straight, false teeth. “And I cried many nights. I said he was ashamed of Germany, of his parents. But down deep I knew he was afraid of men who come in the night.” She stopped short, putting her fingers to her cheeks to compose herself. “So after a few days of crying, you know truth hurts more than lies, I quit and told my son he must live his own life. And I am proud of him. But he could be more than a car salesman.”
“Well, he does own his own dealership,” Bob said.
“He’s still a salesman,” she said, firm in her convictions. “And he has two years of college. He’s a smart boy. He could have done many things. But no.” She looked at Jill and smiled with pride. “My granddaughter knew better. She got her education. Now, that’s a smart girl.”
Peter stuck his head in the door.
“Mr. Holt just drove up.”
“Are you going to be able to talk to him?” Bob looked at Greta who stiffened.
“More specifically, are you going to be able to talk about Hans Moeller?” Jill asked.
Greta looked away, shaking her head. Tears filled her eyes. Bob patted her on the back as he stood.
“You stay here. We’ll explain it to him.”
They left her daubing her eyes and saw Peter finish introductions between Jeff and Rudolph.
“Mr. Holt,” Jill said, “my grandmother isn’t feeling well this afternoon.”
“Jeff, I don’t think it would be a good idea to put her on the stand,” Bob added.
Jeff sat in the second easy chair, and Peter sat next to Rudolph.
“I understand.” He looked at Rudolph. “With Heinrich’s brother’s help I’m sure Mrs. Schmidt’s testimony won’t be necessary.”
Rudolph smiled with contempt at Jeff.
“I want to go over what you’ll swear about your brother on the stand,” he said.
“Est ist hart.” He waved his hand in dismissal as he added a few sentences.
“It’s hard for one brother to talk about another,” Peter translated. “Especially after all these years. I don’t know if what I remember about him is worth repeating. Only reason I agreed to come was because it was a free trip, and I wanted to see if all this big talk about America was true.”
Bob noticed a slight smile flicker across Heinrich’s lips.
“I suppose all you can say about your brother is that he was hard-working.” Jeff sighed.
Rudolph let out a loud guffaw and said, “Fliebig?.” More words gurgled out.
“Hard-working?” Peter translated. “Heinrich wasn’t hard-working.”
Rudolph leaned forward to continue his tirade which caused Heinrich’s smile to fade.
“First he didn’t want to work on our farm for papa and me,” Peter repeated in English. “That’s all right. Let him do what he wants. He wasn’t getting the farm after papa died anyway. I was. So he became a woodcutter, but he didn’t cut wood.”
“Die ganze zeit fickte er.”
“All the time he was…” Peter stopped and looked at Rudolph, shocked at the old man used, his eyes frantic with the search for a euphemism. “He was having sex with every milk maid who lived around Oberbach. Then, after that one woman’s husband beat him up, he went off to Munich to join the Gestapo.”
“Gestapo?” Jeff repeated.
“Yes, Hitler’s police. Don’t you know anything?” Peter blushed at the rudeness of Rudolph’s remarks he had to translate.
“Yes, I know what the Gestapo was.” Jeff sat up. “I was hoping that part of the story wasn’t true.”
“Ja, ist es wahr.”
Peter shook his head, evidently not believing what he had to say, and translated, “Yes, it’s all true.”
Rudolph waved his arms about, looking over at his brother with a smirk.
“Then all he did was ride around in a big car and strut around like some big shot,” Peter continued. “He came to America and opened a shop like an old woman. That’s why he’s so fat.”
“At least, I didn’t have everything handed to me on a silver platter like he did.” Heinrich’s face turned red, and he shook a finger at his brother. “Vati hat ihrenalles geben!”
“Daddy gave you everything,” Peter translated with a smile. “Spoiled brat.”
Rudolph lunged toward Heinrich, spewing angry German epithets. Peter stood fast and tugged on his sleeve, pulling him back.
“I think it’s time we took Rudolph to his hotel,” Bob said.
“Yes,” Heinrich replied in a huff. “He doesn’t know how to behave.”
Their trip to Knoxville was silent. Rudolph seemed to be stung by his brother’s observations and retreated into a shell. Peter slumped in the seat, his emotions spent by having to repeat words that his parents taught him never to say. Bob and Jill, on the other hand, were mute from sheer embarrassment of the situation. After they deposited Rudolph in his room, they went down the elevator and were about to leave when Peter stopped short.
“What’s wrong?” Bob asked.
Peter nodded toward an elderly couple registering at the desk. The woman was tall, statuesque with long yellow-white hair. The man was short and overweight, bald with a certain air of education.
“That’s Eva Moeller, the widow of the man your grandfather is accused of murdering.”
“Who’s the man?” Jill asked.
“Sebastian Keitel. He teaches at a small college near Oberbach.”
“Are they married?” Jill wrinkled her brow.
“Oh no,” Peter said. “Eva vowed never to remarry. I didn’t even know she was acquainted with Mr. Keitel. I don’t understand why he’s here.”
As they turned away from the counter, Eva and Sebastian spotted Peter. After a pause, they walked with purpose toward him.
“Prepare yourselves,” he whispered. “Here they come.”
“Perfect ending to a perfect day,” Bob muttered.
Eva stretched her hand out to Peter. Bob studied her, wondering if pain and hatred made the creases in her once beautiful face.
“Peter,” she said in an even voice. “Wie sind ihre eltem und wer ist dies” She turned to Bob and Jill.
“She gives her greetings to Peter and his parents and wonders who you are,” Sebastian said. “I am Sebastian Keitel, Mrs. Moeller’s interpreter.”
“I’m Bob Meade, a friend of the family.”
“Dessen familie?”
“She wants to know whose family.”
“My family.” Jill smiled with steadfastness and extended her hand to Eva. “I’m Heinrich’s granddaughter.”
When Sebastian translated, Eva stiffed and refused to shake hands. She spat out another statement and narrowed her eyes with her conclusion, “Ich hoffe, dass er in holle verbrentt.”
“She says she hopes your grandfather is sent back to Germany where the courts can try him for murder, execute him, and she hopes he burns in hell,” Sebastian said, savoring each word.
“I want you to be my interpreter.” Jill turned to Peter. “Tell her I sympathize with her pain, but that I am not responsible for it. It’s her choice if she wants to squander what time she has left on earth hating my grandfather, but I refuse to be rebuked for what you perceive to be the sins of my family.”
As Peter spoke, Eva’s spiteful eyes softened and even were framed with humor. She nodded and extended her hand to Jill who shook it with firmness. Eva went past them to the elevator. Pausing a moment, Sebastian went out of his way to smile and shake hands with each of them. He winked at Jill.
“You are a wise young woman. I can tell you are of German heritage.” He looked at Bob. “Is this your young man?”
“Yes,” she said in an even way.
Bob smiled at the quickness of her reply, but it faded as he noticed that Sebastian assessed him.
“Take care, young man,” Sebastian said. “A woman of fire like this one will be a great prize. You must have a will of iron to keep her.”
“Women are not prizes to be won in this country, Mr. Keitel,” Jill informed him. “We are equal human beings who can choose with whom we wish to associate.”
“All women think that.” A slight smirk crossed his face. “Your grandmother thought that. I was her first, shall we say, boyfriend? She thought it was terrible that Heinrich Schmidt would beat me up everyday after school. I went to college to become a teacher, and when I came home on holiday, I’d see him preening about town with his bird feathers in his cap. And he’d still beat me up.” He paused to look deep into Jill’s eyes. “And when it came time to marry, Greta chose a man who could dominate her, not a man who would love her as an equal.”
“Sebastian,” Eva called out from the elevator.
“I must go.” Sebastian turned to Bob. “Take care, young man.”