The Woman Who Heard Color (40 page)

Käthe’s children were much older than Isabella, but several of the granddaughters were close to her age. Hanna watched as she joined the girls, giggling and whispering to one another like sisters. Isabella barely spoke to her mother other than to reintroduce the cousins and bring her a plate of food as if she were an invalid. Käthe, who’d noticed her sister’s uneasy step, had asked about her leg on the way home. Hanna told her it was fine; she was just tired.

Isabella appeared to be a polite, thoughtful young girl. Hanna felt she had little to do with this as she sat quietly observing the scene. It was Käthe and Hans who had raised her daughter for the past four years.

A room with two beds had been prepared for Hanna to share with Isabella. After the children and grandchildren left, she was exhausted. Slowly, she climbed the stairs to the bedroom and fell into a deep slumber before Isabella came up.

The next morning, the girl was curled up, fast asleep. Hanna stood and walked over, staring down at her daughter as she had when she was a baby, watching with a tender ache as her back rose and fell with every soft breath. She thought of those first months when Isabella was a new baby, when Hanna herself tossed and turned in her sleep, fretting over what she knew was true—that Isabella was not Moses’ child. And yet, as a gift, she had come to them, the child they had both longed for. And once more, Hanna thought,
I have been blessed
.

She dressed quietly and went down to the kitchen. Käthe was toasting bread, drinking coffee as she worked. Hans sat, newspaper in hand, forking a plate of eggs, potatoes, and ham. He glanced up as if this was just another day.

“Guten Morgen,”
Käthe said, reaching into the cupboard for a cup.

“Good morning,” Hanna replied. She had decided she would speak only English. For her daughter, she would speak English.

Käthe poured coffee and offered it to Hanna, motioning her to sit.

“Did you sleep well?” Hans asked.

Hanna nodded. She must have. She could remember going to the room, putting on her nightgown, slipping into bed, and then it was morning. She had not dreamed.

“The bed was comfortable?” Käthe set a plate of buttered toast and a jar of homemade jam on the table between her husband and sister.

“Yes, very.” Hanna added cream to her coffee, a spoonful of sugar. She stirred, took a sip, then another. “Thank you, both, for . . . the party.” She owed her sister and Hans much more than a mere thank-you for the welcome party. For the past four years they had kept Isabella safe, caring for her as if she were a member of the family. “Your family has grown. Very good children and grandchildren. Isabella is very good here.”

“She’s a good girl,” Käthe replied.

“I did not know,” Hanna said softly, “it would be this difficult.” Yet, she knew she should have anticipated this discomfort with her daughter.

Käthe said nothing, though Hanna was sure, as a mother, Käthe knew what she was talking about. She sat and held the plate of toast.

Hanna shook her head, and took a sip of coffee.

“She’s been through so much,” Käthe finally said. “Her father. Willy.”

“Does she blame me?” Hanna asked. “For not being here to care for Willy?”

Käthe pursed her lips, and then said quietly, “I think she probably blames herself.”

Hanna remembered the day she had left to go back to Germany to tend Moses. She had told Isabella to look after Willy. What a horrible burden to place upon a child of eight. And Hanna had promised she would make Isabella’s father better. How would she ever trust her mother again?

Hanna couldn’t stop the tears. She dropped her head and wept into her hands.

“Time,” Käthe said simply, placing her hand on her sister’s shoulder, and this seemed so unfair to Hanna. She had spent the past six years waiting. Waiting for life to improve in Germany and then waiting to be reunited with Isabella.

“Thank you, Käthe, thank you, Hans, for taking care of my little girl.”

Hans nodded, but seemed uncomfortable with this conversation. Shortly, he picked up the newspaper and excused himself.

“May I?” Hanna asked, pointing toward the newspaper.

“Yes, of course,” he replied, handing it to her. “You ladies have a good day.” He left the kitchen, out the back door, the screen door swinging behind him.

Hanna’s eyes ran down the first page of the newspaper and she could see it was the same
New York Times
she’d bought at the train station the day before.

“Would you like a nice big, hearty American breakfast?” Käthe asked, as if attempting to lighten the tone.

Hanna shook her head. “Maybe some toast.” She lifted a piece from the plate. She spread jam on it and took a bite. It slid down uneasily. She took a swallow of coffee, then another. She looked down at the newspaper, remembering the articles she had attempted to translate the day before. “What do you know in America, about what happens now in Germany?” she asked her sister.

“We read anything we can find related to Germany. The rest of America . . .” She waved her hand. “The Depression hit many families very hard, but now life is better and people are just trying to tend to themselves. Unless it directly affects them, most Americans don’t really care.”

“What does Isabella know?”

“We’ve tried to protect her.” Käthe got up and poured herself more coffee. She walked back to the table and refilled Hanna’s cup. “Hans doesn’t leave the newspaper lying around. We don’t talk about it. With you still in Germany, not having heard from you for so long, we didn’t want her to think . . . Well.” Käthe walked back to the stove and set the coffeepot on a burner. “It should be obvious,” she went on, “to anyone who reads the paper or listens to the news reports on the radio, that Hitler has clear intentions of reclaiming what was lost in the Great War, that the world is on the verge of another. Sometimes it’s all buried on the second page.” She picked up Hans’ plate and carried it to the sink. She turned on the water and rinsed it off. “But, clearly, for anyone to see what is happening to the Jews—the events of November ninth did make the front page. Yes, we know.” She stared out the window above the sink for a moment, and then turned to Hanna. “Yes, the world is aware, but as I’ve said—”

“Jakob was murdered,” Hanna whispered, “on November ninth, and I fear Helene is gone now, too.”

Käthe nodded sadly, then swallowed hard, as if this was something she had already guessed.

“Do you receive letters from Leni?” Hanna asked. “Frederick?”

“Not often. You know Leni.” Käthe sat at the table.

Käthe and Leni had never really gotten on.

“Frederick’s wife used to write,” Käthe said, “but no, he’s never been one to sit down and send off a letter.”

Frederick’s wife had been gone for more than twenty years now, Hanna reflected. Oh, how the time did move on . . . Her mother had been gone for more than forty years, her father for thirty. She thought of Frederick’s letter that found her in Berlin, her visit to the farm, the Kandinsky painting in the barn. The colors and sounds formed in her mind, though she had thought of it very little on her journey to America.

“When will it end?” Hanna asked, and yet she knew there was more to come. She knew from what she had heard at the Hotel Schloss Bellevue where she had sat and taken meals with some of Hitler’s most devout followers.

The days continued thus, Hanna visiting with Käthe each morning, whispering in the early hours over the newspaper stories as Hitler moved toward Poland, as Great Britain protested.

Hanna cleaned up in the kitchen. She helped with the laundry and ironing, the housework.

During the days, Isabella helped her aunt Katie, as she now called her, with outdoor chores, feeding the pets, gathering the eggs. She spoke little to her mother, taking off after finishing her tasks, hopping on her bike with barely a word of farewell to Hanna. Sometimes she would ask to ride into town with Hans, to go to the library, to visit friends from church and school. When she was home, she sat quietly, reading a book.

Anything to avoid me,
Hanna thought.

Käthe assured her that this was the way with girls of Isabella’s age. Their friends were now the most important part of their lives. Käthe had raised five daughters, and surely she knew.

“But we have not seen each other in four years,” Hanna protested.

Käthe didn’t reply, but Hanna knew that this made it even more difficult.

“Give her some time,” Käthe suggested.

I
n August a telegram arrived for Hanna. Käthe slipped it into her hand without inquiry, though Hanna saw the tightness in the muscles around her mouth and eyes, the crease across her forehead, and she knew a thousand questions must be racing through her sister’s head.

Hanna read silently:

It seemed so terse, yet wasn’t this the nature of a telegram—each word increasing the price. Why not a letter? she wondered as she tucked it in her pocket.

He was angry with her for not telling him about their daughter. But he had received the art. He had written
packages
. This surely meant he had received the smaller bag as well as the art bundled in the lining of the larger. Did he realize the drawing and the bill of sale for the Kandinsky were hidden in the bag?

He wanted Isabella to know the truth, but Hanna could not bear what this might do to the girl, who adored Moses, her papa. This truth would completely sever the fragile thread that was now holding Hanna to her daughter. She would be willing to give up anything now to reclaim her. Even Johann Keller.

Yet he knew where she was if he wanted to find her. Robert had helped her send the telegram from the station, then placed her on the train to go to her family. Now Johann had sent a telegram. Yes, he knew where she was.

She had been weak before, but she would not be weak again.

Hanna did not send a reply to the telegram.

O
ne day she invited Isabella for ice cream, just the two of them. She wanted to talk to her about getting their own place. If they were together, alone, without so much family always dropping in and out, as Käthe’s children and grandchildren tended to do, they could get to know each other better. They needed more time alone. And Hanna needed to go where she couldn’t be found.

Hans gave them a ride into town and dropped them off at a drugstore that Käthe said had a wonderful fountain for ice cream and sodas.

Isabella asked to sit at the long counter on the round swivel stools, though Hanna would have preferred a booth. Isabella ordered chocolate ice cream; Hanna got vanilla.

“Koebler ice cream,” Hanna said with a smile, pointing up toward the sign.

“Yes,” Isabella replied, not bothering to look up.

“You have many friends,” Hanna tried again, turning toward her daughter.

“Yes,” Isabella replied, looking into the mirror behind the woman in the white apron who had just scooped the ice cream from deep cartons in an open freezer.

If only she could speak to me using more than a yes or a no,
Hanna thought with a touch of anger. “I am happy you have friends here in America.” She tried not to reveal the frustration in her voice.

“What did you do in Germany?” Isabella asked, stirring her ice cream. She had barely taken a bite.

“Your father and I had an art gallery,” Hanna answered, confused.

“No, after Papa died, when you were alone.”

“I worked.” Hanna stared at the soda glasses and ice cream dishes lined up along the counter below the mirror. Her eyes rose to her own face, to her daughter who gazed down at her ice cream, her spoon moving in a slow circle.

“Where?” Isabella demanded. Her head jerked up. She glared at her mother’s image in the mirror.

Hanna hesitated. “At an art gallery.”