The Roses Underneath (23 page)

“She was dead. She died in childbirth. He built the chapel to house her remains and those of the baby, who also died. That’s all I know about it.”

Cooper squinted into the sun. “I do like it up here. Come on, let’s go for a walk.” He stood and offered a hand. “Leave that stuff.”

“Someone will take it,” Anna argued, but Cooper pulled her by the elbow toward the path to the church. She punched her hands into her pockets and followed as he strode ahead.

The chapel loomed large, its five towers and their golden domes gleaming in the sun like enormous candles signaling to the heavens: We’re still here. Several windows in the tallest tower were boarded up and damage was visible on the delicate arches. It looked like a tarnished jewel or faded royalty clinging to an outdated role. As if to underline her thought, Cooper walked to the front and searched for the entrance.

“Not there,” Anna called, waving her hand to indicate the side of the building. “That entrance is sealed. They sealed it in 1917 after the fall of the Czar in Russia. We have to use the side door.”

“That’s dumb,” Cooper said. “This has such a great view.” He held his arms out to the panorama of the valley below.

“Exactly,” Anna said. “Only worthy of the nobles. No Czar, no view.”

“No wonder the Russians had a revolution,” Cooper grumbled.

“Is that not how things are done in Iowa?” she teased.

He smiled. “In Iowa we only have one door. For everybody. We got our revolution out of the way early. But still, the architecture is fantastic, don’t you think? Look at those domes. Why do you think the Russians like these onion domes so much?”

Anna shrugged. “I don’t know. Because you can see them more clearly when you are freezing to death out on the Russian steppe?”

“You are so bourgeois.” He winked.

“Or maybe so the snow wouldn’t pile up on them,” she offered, ignoring his jab.

“I think it’s to symbolize the fire of the soul reaching toward the almighty. Or something like that. I mean, just look at it.” Cooper put his hands on his hips and leaned back. “Now
that
we don’t have in Iowa.”

“There’s something to keep you warm when you are buried in two meters of snow,” Anna scoffed. She actually liked his version, but the sport of arguing with him was more appealing.

Even on this warm day the inside of the church was cold. It felt damp and smelled of cloves. Icons of Russian saints rose up the wall that divided the small nave from the sanctuary. Two marble pilasters, their pediments scrolled like wedding cakes, flanked the central opening to the sanctuary. Several icons were covered with sheets and the small crypt of the mother and child was boarded up. Mottled sunlight filtered through the tower’s windows and cast a cold, gray shroud over them. Anna folded her arms across her chest. She thought of the young mother and her baby whose deaths were worthy of such an extravagant remembrance. Sitting down on a chair along the wall, she waited for Cooper, who explored the small space like Lord Carnarvon opening Tutankhamun’s tomb.

“Amazing. I never thought I’d get to see something like this,” he said. He was lost in his own world, walking slowly around the space, seeing things that Anna could not see. She watched him run his hands over the marble carvings and inspect details near the floor, where she would never have thought to look. He walked to one place and then another to regard the nave from different vantage points. She half expected him to barge into the sanctuary secluded behind the wall of saints. Instead, he pointed straight up to the dome where the sunlight illuminated a ring of saints that guarded the entry to a glowing eternity beyond. “That’ll make you believe in heaven.” He nodded at her, waiting for a comeback.

Anna stood. “I am going back outside.”

The warm air comforted her as she squinted into the sun and walked to the picnic spot. Oskar and Amalia were running between the trees and small clumps of people had settled in on patches of grass with meager lunches and tattered blankets.

“She’s around,” Cooper said coming up behind her. “Don’t worry, they’re just having fun. You think you’ll get any more information out of the boy?”

“I hope so. I’ll keep trying. Maybe he’ll soften a little. I want him to trust me, but he really has no reason to. I can’t promise that nothing bad will happen to him. And to him, I am still the lowest of the low, fraternizing with the enemy.”

Cooper smiled at her and patted her arm. “He has to get used to the new world order. Come on, eat something.” He sat down and opened the metal box he had brought, pulling out two small apples. “Look here. Have one of these—they’re actually pretty sweet. And for the kids…” He pulled out a Hershey chocolate bar and wiggled it between his fingers.

Anna rolled the apple around in her hand before biting into it, avoiding the loose tooth as best she could. The taste exploded in her mouth: sweet and crisp and fresh like a cooling rainstorm on a summer day.

“You didn’t like the church?” Cooper asked.

“Why do you say that?”

“You just seemed unimpressed, that’s all.”

“It’s just a building. I have become unsentimental about buildings. Anyway, I would think a building like that would offend your American democratic sensibilities, given what it represents.” She took another bite.

Cooper looked innocent. “What does it represent?”

“The rule of the few over the many.
Domination by the ruling classes. Some lives being of greater value than others.”

“Oh, that. I thought you meant the blind faith in an all-knowing and possibly benevolent God. But if it’s just the ruling classes you have a problem with…”

“I only have a problem when the few take from the many. I think things should be spread around more evenly.”

“Better keep your voice down. Someone will take you for a communist.” He laughed and caught her eye. “You’re not a Red are you?”

Anna’s cheeks burned. “No.”

“Why are you blushing?”

“I said I am not. That is the truth,” she said, her voice dry.

“Well, you sure have some opinions. Better keep those to yourself. Where’d you get them anyway? I thought the Nazis hated the communists?”

“I hate the communists and the Nazis both. I can still have an opinion about people’s rights.” Anna bit the core of the apple in half and chewed slowly. “The Nazis hated everyone who had an opinion that didn’t match theirs. But that doesn’t automatically make everyone who disagreed with them right, either. People could be against the Nazis and be for something that’s equally bad.”

“Like the communists?”

She nodded. “Communists were thrown into concentration camps too. From the very beginning.”

“Right.”

“Right,” she said.

Cooper sighed. “Okay, Anna, just tell me. What’s upsetting you?”

Anna listened to her heart pound for a few moments. A breeze whispered through the trees, twirling dust and leaves around them in a short dance that died down as quickly as it started. Cooper looked at her with anticipation, the same expression he’d had the day he’d found Amalia sitting on the bench.

She thought of Thomas, his slightly off-center smile and the deep-set eyes that grew darker with worry and fear and anger. The kind hands that used to stroke her face, even when she began to rage against him. The last time she saw him, through the truck’s rear-view mirror, he’d been standing at the gate to their garden, hands shoved his pockets, receding into the distance. She could still hear the sound of Amalia wailing, and taste the bile rising in her throat.

“All right. I will tell you. My husband, you know, he’s a doctor. And, well, he’s also an idealist. That is what first drew me to him. He was so passionate and caring—really caring—for people. And for a while I thought he might make a difference. But, of course, the world changed in every way with the Nazis. He refused to see the reality of the danger that he was in. Or he didn’t care. He just continued on. And it became very dangerous—the meetings, the pamphlets, his friends coming to the house. The damn radio broadcasts and secret messages to Moscow. It put us all in jeopardy. Even when Amalia was born, he just became more committed. The Nazis started stringing his comrades up on wires in the middle of town. The Gestapo hauled him in and nearly killed him. He was gone for a week and I pleaded with them to spare Thomas for the sake of his patients, that they had the wrong man. Water torture, beatings, they knocked out half his teeth and then dumped him on the street. But that didn’t stop him. I tried to be understanding, but things became impossible between us. Because we didn’t agree. He thought it was worth dying for his beliefs, for a better world. But, for me, the world could not be better if he was dead. So things got bad.” She waited for a reaction.

Cooper leaned in close. “Are you telling me your husband, the doctor, is a Red?”

Anna let the words hang for a few seconds and then nodded. “After the
Amis
came I thought everything would be all right. I breathed a sigh of relief. But then Truman gave Thuringia back to the Russians at Potsdam, and Thomas was overjoyed. Everything he had risked his life for was coming true. It was the future he dreamed of: the communists taking control, everyone getting their fair share, overthrowing the powerful. He was delirious with happiness. But he saw only what he wanted to see. I knew we had to leave, Amalia and I. I knew what the Russians did to women. So I made arrangements. I bought a truck and packed our things.” Her voice shivered. “We had a terrible fight over Amalia—tugging and pulling her between us like animals until I could grab her and get her in the truck. She and I drove off and well, to tell you the truth, I am not sure if he’s ever going to come.”

She had finally said it out loud. Anna looked around, feeling very conspicuous, sitting on the grass having a picnic with the
Ami
.
How ridiculous
. She was wrong to have asked him to come. And now she had told him her secret.

Cooper whistled through his teeth. “Wow, I did not see that coming. That’s a terrible situation. It never occurred to me you could be married to a Red. Nazi, sure, but a Red? Does anyone else know about this?” His face was serious. It made Anna nervous.

She shook her head. “No one. Not even Madeleine. I never told anyone, not even my parents. It was too dangerous. The Americans never asked me about communism, they just wanted to know if I was a Nazi. So I said nothing. But now I know Thomas’s politics are a problem.” She pulled at the grass next to her knees. “If he comes here I’ll lose my job, won’t I? The Americans won’t tolerate having the wife of a communist working for them. And what will happen to us? We’ll all get sent back to the Russian zone, won’t we? I can’t go there. But I can’t stay here either and take Amalia from her father. I have no right. He’s a good man, despite everything.” Her eyes teared. “And, of course, Amalia blames me for leaving him. She doesn’t understand any of this. She just misses her father.”

Cooper sat and looked at her, working at a thought with his jaw. “Talk about going from the frying pan into the fire,” he said finally.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing. It’s just incredible how you survive one nightmare and find yourself smack in the middle of the next one. People can’t just be people anymore. Everyone has to pick a side. And you, my dear, have got a real problem. I won’t tell anyone, but you’re going to have to figure out what to do before someone figures it out for you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you’re neither here nor there right now. You’ll have to make a choice sooner or later. Things won’t stay in this in-between way much longer. Either you decide or someone else will.”

For a while neither of them spoke. Oskar and Amalia laughed as they chased each other, oblivious to everything. The sun glowed and a bird sang its tiny song into the big sky. The world continued, but Anna felt frozen. She could see no way forward, but now there was no going back.

“Look, I need to tell you something, too,” Cooper said suddenly. He looked at the horizon, avoiding Anna’s eyes. “I’ve got a problem at the Collecting Point. Frankfurt really wants me to bring on our friend Schneider, as a restorer. I told them no, and now Farmer—the director—and I are taking heat for it. Apparently our friend Phillips in Frankfurt is real hot for us to hire Schneider. I can’t figure out why he’s pushing so hard for him and ignoring my opinion. Farmer’s a good man, and I don’t want to make problems for him. But, at the same time, I know Schneider stinks and I don’t want him anywhere near all the art we’ve got coming in.”

He looked sad, his bright American optimism marred and tarnished. Anna felt sorry for him. She crossed her legs and leaned in to whisper, “I think so too. I don’t blame you at all.”

He nodded. “I know I’m right. His joining the SA doesn’t seem to bother the brass. They said it was a formality for him to stay in business and that Special Branch has examined the
Fragebogen
and that there’s no suspicion attached to him. Did you ever hear such a flimsy excuse? That rationale would pardon every Nazi in Germany. A
formality
? Please. Did you know he put his business in his wife’s name? And now she’s dead, so he’ll get it back, no matter how long I stall his paperwork. But during the war, it was mostly hers and she was never a member of the Party, so we can’t touch his assets or lay any claim to them. Any painting he can document as hers, he gets back, period. Then there’s his trip to the concentration camp and getting himself kicked out of the Party. As if that proves anything.” He paused. “Maybe he’s a communist, too.” He shot Anna a sarcastic look.