A Trace of Smoke (Hannah Vogel) Page 9

  Father looked surprised, because I did not demand things, but only said, “Of course.”

  I knew he would find one and pay her well. He could see that Ernst must be protected from Mother’s carelessness, in a way that did not matter for us girls. We had only to learn to run a household and marry well. We were to marry officers if we could, shop keep ers otherwise. It was a simple plan, and we needed little caretaking to achieve it. Ernst had a grander future—follow in Father’s footsteps. He was to join the army, distinguish himself in battle, conduct himself with honor, and carry on Father’s name. Father had such high hopes for Ernst, in the beginning.

  10

  The bed was empty. My heart raced. The mother had come. The child was gone.

  “Anton,” I called, standing.

  “I’m here,” he answered from the kitchen. “Being quiet.”

  I pulled on Walter’s old bathrobe, a gift from his mother after he died, and walked into the kitchen. Anton sat cross-legged on a kitchen chair, holding his bear. His well-scrubbed face was pale and his just-trimmed hair stuck out in all directions, like down on a newly dried chick.

  “Good morning,” I said.

  “Indian good morning,” he answered, looking serious.

  “Did you eat any breakfast?” I asked.

  “I never touch food without permission.” He hugged his bear. “That’s stealing. The brave never steals.”

  “You can eat anything in this apartment whenever you want. Do you understand?” I said, trying to keep my voice calm, to conceal my anger at a life that had kept him from food.

  I set the table with two plates, two knives, my last two rolls, honey, milk, and two cups. I even found napkins. I heated water for my honey tea and milk for Anton.

  “There we are,” I said. “A party for Anton, Hannah, and bear.”

  “Winnetou,” he said.

  Anton gulped breakfast more quickly than his dinner the night before. He ate his roll without seeming to chew.

  “I am full.” I handed him the rest of my roll. If I had not seen Ernst eat as a child I never would have believed Anton could hold it in his tiny stomach.

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “When is your aunt coming to get you?” I asked.

  “Never,” he said. “She said that my real father and mother would take care of me from now on. Forever.”

  Big fat tears plopped onto the half-eaten roll. “Auntie Sweetie said she was finished with me. No matter what I wanted.”

  I reached across and stroked his fine, soft hair. “Such foolishness. We will find her.”

  He held up his hand, his palm facing me. “Stop,” he said. “She said she would beat me if I came home. She said she was moving to Munich to get away from Thomas’s uncle.”

  I sighed. I had no time to get into a complicated discussion about his mother and her whereabouts. If Herr Neumann did not get a story I would lose my job. But what would I do with Anton? “I have to go to work today.”

  He scrutinized me as I stood there in my old scruffy bathrobe and bare feet. “Where are your boots?”

  “There are many kinds of work,” I said. “I write stories for my job.”

  “Like Little Red Riding Hood?”

  I thought of the stories of serial rapes, murders, and beatings I cranked out for my newspaper. “A little.”

  He stood and walked into my bedroom. The wardrobe door creaked open and closed.

  I opened the door. There he sat on the bottom of the wardrobe, holding his bear. My black dress shoes and winter boots were pushed neatly to one side.

  “We’re ready,” he said.

  “For what?”

  “For you to go to work,” he said. “We will be very quiet.”

  “I will never lock you in a wardrobe,” I said. “I will take you to a friend’s house. She has other children for you to play with.”

  We cleaned the kitchen and got dressed. I wore a long-sleeved gray dress, too warm for the weather, but it covered the bruises on my arm. Anton looked pathetic in the too large shirt, a pair of Ernst’s childhood lederhosen, and his own dirty shoes with no socks.

  We hurried down the stairs to catch a bus to Bettina’s apartment. I felt the eyes of Schmidt the news seller on me as we ran to the bus stop. He’d never seen me with a child.

  Bettina lived on the ground floor of her apartment building. Built about ten years ago, it had elegant, clean lines, unlike the sooty brick of my own building. A young mother dressed in a fashionable short gown rolled a pram by and nodded politely.

  I lifted the polished brass knocker and rapped on the front door.

  “Hannah,” Bettina said, answering the door at once. She wore an immaculately pressed blue dress and a white apron. “It’s wonderful to see you. Come in, there’s tea.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  Anton clung to me with one hand and to his bear with the other.

  “This is Anton,” I said. “Anton, this is Aunt Bettina.”

  Bettina raised her perfect brown eyebrows. “Nice to meet you, Anton. Please do come in.”

  We stepped through the front door into the hall. Her apartment was bigger than mine and much more homey. The furniture was new and comfortable, and the open curtains let friendly morning light stream in. I took a deep breath. Bettina’s apartment always smelled good enough to eat. Today it smelled of cinnamon and vanilla.

  “Sophia,” she called. “Aunt Hannah brought you a playmate.”

  Bettina had three children. Her youn gest, Sophia, was four. She appeared, perfectly dressed and brushed, like a doll in a shop window, with long brown curls and round blue eyes in a porcelain face. Underneath her charming exterior she was impish and strong-willed.

  “I have a tea party.” She held out her plump pink hand. “You and your bear can join. My doll Claudette is pouring.”

  Anton took her hand in his bony white one and followed her out of the room, his pointy chin held high.

  “Well?” Bettina said. “Feeling better? Fritz said you were ill on Monday at the station.”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Except for this.” I waved my hand in the direction that Anton had gone.

  “Yes.” She led me to her tiny kitchen and poured me a cup of tea. “Tell me.”

  I smiled. We’d been friends since childhood. Her father was in the army too, but at a higher rank than my father’s. He was not a screamer, or a beater, or a drinker. Bettina’s husband, Fritz, was funny and thoughtful. She had always lived the life I wanted.

  “He may be Ernst’s son,” I said.

  “Ernst?” she said, shocked. “But wouldn’t that mean that at one point he had to . . . with a woman?”

  I nodded. “That would be my understanding.”

  “But that boy looks four,” Bettina said. “Ernst would have been sixteen!”

  “Biology and mathematics,” I said. “You are a genius. But Anton is five, almost six, which means Ernst would have been fourteen when he was conceived.”

  Bettina smiled. “You’d better ask Ernst.” She placed a warm scone onto a plate and handed it to me.

  I took the scone. I wanted to tell Bettina everything, but I knew that she might tell Fritz. And Fritz, being Fritz, would start an investigation immediately, before Sarah and Tobias reached safety. I could not ask Bettina to lie to her husband for me.

  “Is little Anton visiting his aunt Hannah for long?”

  “I have no idea.” I handed her the note and birth certificate and ate the sweet raisin scone. It was warm from the oven, and I was hungry from my half breakfast. “His mother left him on my doorstep yesterday.”

  She gasped when she read the birth certificate. “Is he yours?” She looked at me with wide eyes.

  “Of course not,” I said impatiently, taking a sip of strong black tea to clear my throat. “You have known me all this time. You would not have noticed a pregnancy and child?”

  Bettina laughed. “You’ve always been such a slender little thing.”

  “I�
�m grateful that you remember.”

  She ignored me. “My goodness. What are you going to do? Drop him on Ernst? He can’t raise a child. He’s up all hours. And the people he associates with—”

  “I cannot raise a child either.” I sat the teacup down in its delicate saucer with a clink. “I am an unfit mother.”

  “Nonsense. Where did you get that idea? You are not an unfit mother.”

  “Of course I am. Look how Ernst turned out.” I wanted to add, “Dead in a gutter.”

  “He’s a fine boy, Hannah.” Her eyes snapped in anger. This was a familiar argument. “He loves you, and he takes care of himself.”

  “Does he?” I thought back to his photograph in the Hall of the Unnamed Dead. He did not take care of himself. And I had not helped him.

  “Of course he does. He’s a headline singer at El Dorado. That’s a good job, and he lives in a wonderful apartment and he never has to ask you for money.”

  “Rudolf pays for the apartment.”

  “And? Fritz pays for this apartment, my dear.”

  I laughed. “You’re married.”

  Bettina shook her head. “Well, maybe Ernst would be married too, if it were allowed.”

  “I cannot raise this child, Bettina,” I repeated.

  “What about his mother?”

  “She’s a prostitute,” I said, and told her everything I learned from Anton.

  “I can’t believe Ernst impregnated a prostitute when he was fourteen. He was always precocious, but not in that way.”

  “There was one time”—I cleared my throat—“he said he was going to go find a female prostitute and try . . . try to be normal.”

  “Oh, that poor boy,” Bettina said. “You didn’t let him go, did you?”

  I shot her an angry look. “Certainly not. But I also did not follow him every second of his life. If he had wanted to go, he could have done so without my knowledge.”

  We ate scones in silence.

  “Well, no matter who his father is, you can’t send him back to live with some prostitute.” She began to clear the table. Bettina never sat still for long.

  “I cannot find her to send him back,” I said. “But there are orphanages.”

  “My God, Hannah.” She took another tray of scones out of the oven. I inhaled the comforting scent. “Those places are terrible. Let Ernst raise him before you do that.”

  “Ernst is missing,” I said.

  “He’s always somewhere.” She scooped each perfect triangle onto the counter to cool. “He’ll turn up before long.”

  I dared not trust even Bettina, but oh how I wanted to. I bit my lip. Who knew what she might let slip to Fritz?

  “May I leave Anton here today?” I said. “I may need to leave him here off and on until I get a few things sorted out.”

  “He needs continuity,” she said. “Not shuttling around between houses.”

  “I will only have him for a few days. Perhaps a week. By then I should find some place for him to go.”

  “And if you don’t?”

  I looked down at my hands, my fingers interlocked, as if in prayer. “I will.”

  She sighed and shook her head. “You can’t promise something like that.”

  “Will you take him today?”

  “To keep the wee one from being dragged around to Peter Weill’s favorite haunts?” She smiled. “I will.”

  “Thank you.” I headed for the front door. “I must be going.”

  “Oh no, you don’t,” Bettina said. “That boy has been through too much already. You are not abandoning him.”

  “I think it will be easier if I leave quietly.”

  “Easier for you, perhaps. Now go tell him good-bye and promise you’ll be back.” She put her hands on her rounded hips and glared at me.

  I opened my mouth to argue, but Bettina folded her arms across her chest and gave me her stubborn look. “Hannah,” she said, sounding like her mother.

  “I’ll do it.” I followed her to Sophia’s room, tucking Sweetie’s note and the birth certificate into my satchel.

  Anton sat in a tiny white chair in Sophia’s room, turning her doll over and over in his hands. I think he’d never seen one before. Winnetou sat on the floor by his feet. Caramel, the dog, stretched out near the door, keeping watch. He stood when we entered and wagged his tail. I petted his thick brown fur, comparing his calm demeanor now to his ebullient puppyhood. Anton had none of that ebullience.

  “Anton,” I said, and he dropped the doll and jumped to his feet, looking sheepish. He picked up his bear. “I am going out for a while, but I will be back before dark to pick you up.”

  His eyes filled with tears, and he hugged his bear so hard I thought the stuffing would come out.

  I leaned down to give him a hug. He dropped his bear and wrapped both arms around my neck. He held me so tightly I could barely breathe.

  Bettina peeled him off me gently and held him in her arms instead, rubbing his back with one strong hand.

  “I will see you soon,” I said.

  He looked at me with his big eyes and shook his head.

  “You do not believe me?” I asked, surprised.

  He shook his head again.

  I looked at Bettina for help.

  “She will be back, darling,” Bettina crooned, rocking from side to side as if he were an infant. “She would never let me keep a sweet thing like you all to myself. And she’ll want some cookies.”

  “Cookies?” Anton looked at her suspiciously.

  “The cookies we are going to bake right now.” Bettina ran her hand through his hair, straightening it out. “Butter cookies. Hannah’s favorite. She stops by to get them every time I bake them.”

  “You will come for the cookies?” Anton asked me.

  “I will come for you,” I said. “And the cookies.”

  Anton relaxed against Bettina, and I glanced at her. Her face was chalk white, and her chin was set. “Kiss him,” she mouthed.

  I kissed Anton’s soft cheek. “I promise,” I said. “I will see you later, Anton, Bettina, and Sophia.”

  “And Winnetou,” Anton said.

  “Winnetou too.”

  As I walked out, Sophia said, “Aunt Hannah keeps her promises, even if she is strange sometimes.”

  I stifled a laugh. It was the nicest thing anyone had said about me in a long time.

  11

  Ernst knew only one person who could have faked that birth certificate, and I was going to visit him. Then I had to make up some kind of story to satisfy Herr Neumann before deadline.

  I gripped the cold brass handrail as the elevator lifted me to Rudolf’s fourth-story office. The elevator operator in his navy-blue uniform was better dressed than I and stony-faced. He’d probably seen all manner of people come up here. I ran my hand over my hair and clutched my satchel.

  Who was Anton’s mother? I tried to remember Ernst’s school friends. Many girls visited him, both at our apartment and, before that, at our parents’ house. Father held out hope that this was proof of Ernst’s virile nature, but I’d always assumed that girls were friends with him precisely because he was not masculine. He was playful and exciting, and there was no need to worry about sexual advances. Although obviously one girl should have worried. Or perhaps it had been a prostitute, and I would never know who it was.

  If Rudolf knew, would he tell me? He’d never been forthcoming with information before. Yet I had proof that he had broken the law. He had put his career on the line to help Ernst by forging the birth certificate. I had thought him incapable of doing something so altruistic. That meant there was more to his actions than I knew. If I dug deeply enough, I expected to find a darker motive.

  The elevator opened onto a sumptuous waiting room as unlike the bullpen at the paper as I could imagine. The large room had a golden oak parquet floor inlaid with a basket-weave pattern, and a thick burgundy Persian rug. A man in his twenties wearing a pressed suit one shade lighter than the gray that Rudolf favored sat beh
ind an imposing desk.

  “May I help you?” He smiled, showing perfect white teeth.

  “I am here to see Herr von Reiche,” I said. “On a matter of some urgency.”

  He raised his eyebrows toward his pomaded blond hair. “Herr von Reiche the first or Herr von Reiche the second?”

  “The second,” I said, remembering that Rudolf’s father still worked here. I took small pleasure in realizing that Rudolf would always be second.

  “And when is your appointment?” He glanced meaningfully at the inlaid clock on the wall.

  “I have no appointment,” I said. “But he will see me.”

  “Name?” he asked.

  “Hannah Vogel.”

  If he recognized the name from Ernst, he gave no sign. “Please sit,” he said. “May I fetch you a cup of coffee, perhaps?”

  “That would be delightful.” I knew that etiquette dictated I refuse the offer, but I needed to make the frosty little man wait on me, if only for a while.

  “Wait right here,” he said, and disappeared through a thick wooden door. I darted behind his desk and paged through Rudolf’s appointment book, but it only had initials in it. Right now he met with a J. L., whoever that was. The appointments went forward from today, so I could not find out what he’d been doing around the time Ernst died.

  When the secretary returned, I sat innocently in my leather chair, reading Anton’s identity papers. They looked completely authentic.

  “Herr von Reiche will see you in a few minutes,” he said, sounding surprised.

  “Of course,” I answered, trying not to look shocked. I’d expected a battle.

  He handed me a porcelain cup with a blue Chinese scene painted on it and a delicate saucer so thin it was translucent. The cup cost more than my rent. The coffee itself tasted excellent, rich and strong. I sipped it, happy to be costing Rudolf something.

  Rudolf made me wait for half an hour. I drank his rich coffee and admired the oil paintings of his esteemed ancestors on the walls. A stiff and starchy lot. I paced the expensive rug and looked out the spotless windows. Rudolf had a large inheritance to come, I suspected. I thought of my own: my childhood bed. At last the thick mahogany door swung open, and Rudolf strode through.