Winter Kept Us Warm Page 12

  “I will do what must be done,” Abdoul said.

  “You will not hurt him,” Ulli said sternly. “I don’t want to be responsible for his fear,” she said, loudly enough for the man, who was still crying, to hear.

  “As you wish, madame,” Abdoul said.

  “Here,” Ulli said, thrusting two hundred dirhams into his hand.

  She did not know exactly what the money was for, except that she had grown accustomed to solving problems with a few dirhams here and a few dirhams there. She hoped, perhaps, that it would keep the man away. All she wanted was for him to be gone. As soon as they were out the door, however, Ulli realized that Abdoul must have thought that the money was for him, to ensure that he would follow her orders, and she thought that was probably for the best. She imagined her attacker lying on the side of the road, his head aching, his pockets empty and his throat dry, and for a moment she allowed herself to take pleasure in his misery. But she did not allow herself to linger there, in his fear.

  When Abdoul returned an hour later, he sent the boy home. “I never want to see you again,” he said, turning away from him dramatically, waving him off, and the boy—who in Abdoul’s absence had prepared tea for Ulli and waited silently in attendance—left without a word. In a few weeks, Ulli was sure, Abdoul would ask to have him reinstated. He would apologize for acting rashly, remind her of the boy’s poor mother, and Ulli would take him in again, for he was a sweet boy and would never again, she was sure, fall asleep while on duty.

  After the boy was sent away, Abdoul wanted to take Ulli to the hospital. He was sure that she was injured. Her arm ached. That was all. There would be a bruise, of course, but not until morning. Now all she could think of was sleep. Abdoul wanted to keep watch outside her door, but she knew she would not be able to sleep with him there. In the end he agreed because it was his job to do what she required.

  “In the morning, you will not be able to tell that anything happened in the kitchen,” he said.

  “Thank you,” Ulli said. “Thank you.”

  It was after three in the morning. She passed Isaac’s room on her way to her own quarters, but she did not stop to check on him, though she wondered whether he had been awakened by the noise, whether he was restlessly counting the minutes until morning.

  When she got to her room, she called Abdoul to make sure he would not speak to anyone about what had happened. Now that the tourists were finally coming back, she did not want to risk losing them again. Only after hanging up did she let herself give in to sleep. She would rest now, and she would awaken when the sun was shining and take care of what needed to be taken care of, and that was the end of it. After all, nothing had happened. She was tired, she reminded herself, and tomorrow would be a busy day. The hotel would be full, and there was the wedding in the evening that she had to attend, the daughter of her most important meat and wine supplier. What on earth had she been thinking to go out alone in the middle of the night?

  She couldn’t sleep, of course. The moment she closed her eyes, she could hear the soldiers laughing and whistling, smell them as they got closer, their clothes thick with war. She saw Simone and Juliet crouching in a corner, shaking, clutching each other. She tried to run to them, but she stumbled, fell again on the hard kitchen floor, and the soldiers came closer and her daughters were whimpering. Ulli sat up, turned on the light, forced herself to think of her attacker lying on the kitchen floor, weak and vanquished by an old woman. “We are safe now,” she said out loud. “We are safe now,” she repeated, as if the words would change everything.

  Isaac was just finishing his breakfast, eating the last scoop of his soft-boiled egg, when Ulli came into the dining room. “Good morning,” he said to her cheerfully.

  “Isaac,” Ulli said, as if she were surprised to see him, had forgotten he was staying there.

  “What’s wrong, Ulli?” Isaac asked.

  “Nothing,” she said. “Sometimes I have a hard time sleeping.”

  “Have a seat,” he said, standing up and pulling the chair out for her.

  “I’m sorry, Isaac, but I am already behind,” she said. She left him there, standing with his hand on the back of the chair.

  “Ulli,” he called after her, and some of the guests turned to look.

  She couldn’t face him now. She stopped, smiled at her guests, and continued on to the kitchen, where everything was back in place, as Abdoul had said it would be. She stood for a moment, staring at the spot where they had fallen to the floor. She could still feel his weight on her.

  “Madame?”

  “Ah, Dris,” she said, pulling herself together, throwing her shoulders back, breathing in. “It smells wonderful,” she said. “Wonderful.”

  “Please, have a seat. You are not well,” the cook said. He took her arm in order to lead her to a stool in the corner.

  “No!” Ulli said, breaking loose.

  “Madame—”

  She heard the cook calling after her, but she did not respond.

  Isaac was still at the table when she came back through the dining room. He did not get up this time, did not pull out a chair, but Ulli sat down across from him.

  “I’m sorry, Isaac. There is so much to do. We will be completely full by evening.”

  “Of course,” Isaac said.

  “I want you to go home,” Ulli said.

  Isaac did not respond.

  “It’s not you, Isaac. It was never you. It’s just too much. I don’t have the strength,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  “The strength for what?” he said.

  “Forgive me. Forgive me for everything,” she said, and walked away.

  Don’t be sorry, just don’t do it, Isaac thought. It was what he used to tell the girls when they apologized about something they had done, though he knew they would make the same mistakes again and be sorry again. “Ulli,” he called, but she was already gone.

  America

  The hotel room where Leo and Ulli lived after the eviction had a peculiar smell. It wasn’t specific or strong, like mildew or urine, old sweat or cheap perfume, but it was there, and it seeped into Leo’s clothes and skin, reminded him too much of the anxiety that he could hear in his parents’ voices when they talked about the swelling river: “It’s up an inch already, and if we have any more rain . . .” It wasn’t even an unpleasant smell. There was something sweet about it, like cake, but Leo couldn’t figure out where the hell it came from, and that was what bothered him, the mystery of it, not the smell itself.

  Ulli couldn’t smell anything. “It’s a clean place,” she said, which it was. Every day a woman came to sweep and mop, and in the mornings they opened the windows to let in fresh air. The smell drove Leo out into the world. He no longer wanted to linger, to luxuriate in sleep and Ulli’s warmth beside him. All around, hammers were banging, cement was mixing; out of the rubble, a new city was growing. People no longer bent to winter. They opened their arms wide to embrace the sun and stood tall now that they were free of the heavy weight of overcoats. There was meat in the grocery stores, and oranges. It seemed as if, overnight, streetlights had sprung from the pavement, filling the darkness with new light. It would not be long before there was no rubble left, no street unlit. Stores would be overflowing with vegetables and eggs, soap and beer, and cigarettes would become as plentiful as air. Already, forgetting was winning over remembering. Soon the displaced people would all have found their places, and the Germans were filling their shopping carts with delicacies.

  In order to avoid the brightest lights and the people walking arm in arm in the evening, Leo walked from the hotel to the base along the darker side streets. Sometimes, as he walked alone, there were men who looked at him as if they knew him. Sometimes the men followed him, keeping their distance, but he would continue walking at the same even pace until his pursuer gave up and he was alone.

  On one night, however
, a man did not veer off into the night. He kept following at a steady pace, so Leo veered, but still he followed. Leo stopped abruptly and turned around, and the man stopped right under a streetlamp, so Leo could see not just his shadow but his smile, half like a child and half like a tired old man who had done this so many times before. The man thrust his hands deep into his pockets and stared right at Leo, waiting.

  “What do you want?” Leo called to him in English.

  “Komm,” the man said.

  Leo started walking toward the man, who smiled smugly, as if he were sure of what Leo wanted. Leo stopped just a few feet before him. Who is this man? Who does he think I am? Leo thought, his desire turning to anger.

  Again the man whispered, “Komm.” Leo came closer. Now they stood face-to-face. The man said it again, “Komm,” and Leo punched him hard, felt the bone in the man’s nose give. The man clutched his nose, and Leo punched him again in the stomach. The man staggered back, and Leo struck him in the jaw. The man fell to the ground. Off to the side, near the streetlamp, was a vacant lot. Along with stacks of lumber was a pile of brand-new bricks. Leo grabbed a brick off the top of the pile and returned to where the man was lying on the ground, clutching his stomach. Leo raised the brick. “Bitte,” the man said. Leo turned toward the streetlamp and threw the brick at the lamp with all his might.

  The next day, he asked Ulli to marry him. It was time to go home, and he wanted her to come with him, not to Johnstown with its fire-spitting spires and menacing river, but someplace new.

  “Where?” Ulli asked.

  “I’ve been thinking about California,” Leo said.

  “I would like to go to California,” Ulli said. It was, she thought, the most American place in America, the newest, the least burdened by history, the exact opposite of Berlin. “Do you think we could live by the ocean?”

  “We can live wherever we goddamn want,” Leo said, for at that moment he was sure that anything was possible.

  “In California you have to drive everywhere,” Isaac said when they told him.

  “I like driving,” Leo said.

  “You’ll miss the winter,” Isaac said.

  “I hate the winter,” Leo said.

  “What will you do there?” Isaac asked, and Leo said he would figure it out.

  “You could go to college,” Isaac suggested, but Leo didn’t want to go to school. He was tired of sitting on the sidelines. He was going to be part of the action now. He was going to make something of himself.

  An army chaplain conducted the ceremony. They made it clear that they didn’t want any mention of God, but the chaplain could not help himself and spoke of God more than once. Isaac was more annoyed about it than Ulli or Leo.

  “What the hell,” Leo said, patting the chaplain on the back when Isaac insisted on bringing it up after the ceremony was over. “It’s just words, right? We’re leaving tomorrow, going home,” Leo said.

  “I wish I were going home,” the chaplain said sadly.

  “God is everywhere,” Isaac said, but nobody laughed.

  In 1950, the year Ulli arrived in the United States, one still deboarded a plane right onto the tarmac, and so she walked down the metal stairs and right into a New York City summer. The temperature was ninety-seven, the humidity ninety-five percent. She was wearing high heels, gloves, and one of those silly pillbox hats with a mesh veil. Leo wore a seersucker suit. Their plan was to move to Los Angeles, but first they were going to visit Leo’s family in Johnstown. He said that they might as well spend a couple of days in New York. Ulli did not remember much about those two days except the heat and the bartender at the hotel bar, a surly Hungarian who was scared to death of nuclear war. They spent most of their time there with him because they both agreed that it was just too hot to venture outside, though they did go to the top of the Empire State Building since it was just a few blocks from the hotel. They stood smoking at the window at the top of the tallest building in the world, looking out over the city. The next day, they took the train to Pennsylvania.

  Leo was the kind of man who loved to surprise people, so he had not written to his parents about his marriage or about his return to the United States and civilian life. On the short walk from the bus station to his parents’ house, they stopped three times so Leo could introduce Ulli to the owner of the grocery store, the owner of the diner, and a high school friend who worked at the post office. “This is my wife,” he said proudly each time, and she shook hands with all of them and told them she was glad to meet them.

  “You’re a lucky man,” the grocer said, and Leo agreed.

  Leo’s father, it turned out, was home from work with a bad back and could not get up from bed, so Ulli was presented to him in the bedroom. “Sit,” he said, so they sat down beside him.

  “You remember Joe Ricardi?” he said to Leo. “He brought home a German wife too. She already had a baby. As a matter of fact, I think they got married for that very reason. You’re not pregnant, are you?” he asked Ulli.

  “Oh no,” she said.

  “Then you must be in love,” he said.

  “Yes,” Leo said, and he meant it.

  They went into the kitchen, where his mother served them tuna fish sandwiches and pickles. She did not eat with them.

  In the evening, they visited his older brother, Ivan, and his wife and children. Leo’s brother had been in combat in Europe, but Leo and Ivan didn’t talk about the war. Ulli wondered whether it was because Ivan did not want to think about what he had seen and done, or because he didn’t want to make Leo feel inadequate for having spent the war behind a desk. She could feel the distance between them, and the objects in the room—the worn sofa, the drapes, the coffee table upon which sat a single bowl of mints—all stood like sentries, keeping the delicate peace. While the brothers drank beer and talked about baseball, Ivan’s wife showed Ulli her garden. She broke a flower from a bush and handed it to Ulli. “Honeysuckle,” she said.

  “Thank you,” Ulli said.

  “You can eat it,” the wife said. “Like this.” She broke off another flower and sucked on it. “Try it,” she said.

  Ulli tried it.

  “What do you think?” the wife asked.

  “It’s sweet,” she said.

  “Yes, like honey,” the wife said, and they went back into the house.

  Later, Ulli cried when she told Leo about the honeysuckle. “She was so kind,” she said.

  “Why are you crying, then?” Leo asked.

  “Because there is so little kindness in the world.”

  “Well, things are different now,” Leo said. “I know they are.”

  That night, Leo’s parents insisted on letting them use the only fan in the house. “But what about your back?” Ulli protested to Leo’s father.

  “My back hurts whether it’s hot or not,” Leo’s father said.

  After a couple of days, even though his back still hurt, Leo’s father had to return to work at the steel mill. He had worked there since he finished high school. All the men in his family had worked in the steel mill ever since they settled in the area in the mid-nineteenth century. Ivan worked there.

  “There’s no rest for us steelworkers,” Leo’s father said, half complaining and half proud. “It’s the steelworkers who won the war, you know. We made the U.S. Army what it is. Do you think you can fight a war without steel? Not that I don’t appreciate the soldiers, the ones who shed their blood. Don’t get me wrong about that. It’s just that people have got to understand that there’s more to a war than the fighting.”

  “I think they do understand,” Ulli replied, as if he had been looking for confirmation.

  Ulli wanted to say more, that she was sorry for what her country had done, but she knew it was too soon for that, especially since Leo’s sister, whom Ulli did not meet because she was living in Pittsburgh, had been engaged to a man who had d
ied on the Western Front.

  Leo’s mother showed Ulli photos of the members of their family—both on her side and on Leo’s father’s side—who had “perished,” as she put it, in the flood. They had a special leather album just for them. On the cover, embossed in gold, it read Our Beloved Victims of the Johnstown Flood, May 1889.

  “The river will flood again, you know,” she said after they finished looking at the album. “It flooded in 1936, and it will flood again. There’s no stopping nature.”

  “Do you ever think of moving?” Ulli asked.

  She looked at Ulli as if Ulli had asked her whether she hated her mother. “Where would we go?” she said.

  “You could come to California with us,” Ulli offered.

  “What on earth would we do in California?” she said. “California,” she repeated, as if it were the most absurd place in the world.

  During the day, Leo and Ulli helped his mother with various projects, cleaning out the kitchen cabinets and lining them with new shelving paper or going through all the boxes in the garage and carting off what was to be discarded to the dump. Ulli found these tasks terribly tiring: the measuring and cutting to make sure that everything was exactly right, his mother’s insistence on looking through every last yellowed newspaper because there might be a recipe or an article she could not live without. Leo, on the other hand, was energized by this midsummer spring cleaning. It was something concrete he could do with direct and obvious results.

  It would do no harm to linger here for a while. Who knew when they would have a chance to visit again? California was so far away. And Leo could think things through while he worked, take the time to get it all straight in his head, though he was sure everything would work out. He had a plan now, too, a plan beyond California—insurance. They had met a guy in New York, Jimmy was his name, who was in insurance, and he was rolling in money and insisted on buying drinks. Jimmy had been in the Pacific. He had a foot-long scar on his thigh—shrapnel. After a few rounds Jimmy pulled up his pant leg and showed them the scar, made them touch it.