When We Meet Again Page 16

  He wrote to her every day at the beginning, and then, when he never heard back, he began writing every other day, and then every third day. It wasn’t that he was losing interest. No, he loved her more with each passing moment. But he was beginning to worry that he was merely a burden to her, a mistake to be forgotten.

  “Don’t worry,” Maus would say to him on the nights when Peter’s world felt particularly dark. “You will find her again someday.”

  “But what if I find her,” Peter often replied, “and her love for me is gone?”

  “Then you will go on.” It was Maus’s reply each time, his tone firm and gentle.

  But Peter knew that wasn’t possible. It was Margaret who sustained him.

  * * *

  It was a snowy December day, a week before Christmas 1947, that Peter was finally sent home to Germany. His heart was in his throat as he climbed off the train in Holzkirchen. There was no welcome party, no fanfare, despite the fact that he’d written ahead to say he was coming. He hadn’t heard from his parents or his brother for the last year, and his increasingly worried letters home had all gone unanswered. What if they had all died? What would he find when he knocked on the door to his childhood home?

  But when Peter arrived on the doorstep of Auwaldstraße 18, carried there by feet made heavy with dread, it was his father who answered the door. A million things tumbled through Peter’s mind. Relief that his father was alive, confusion over why he hadn’t written in so long, hurt at the sneer that crossed his father’s face as he stood there on the doorstep.

  “You have brought great shame to this family,” were his father’s first words to him. “You were too weak to survive in battle. You were captured as a coward. You disgraced us.”

  Peter stared at him, taking in the fury in his father’s eyes. The man had aged to an almost shocking degree since Peter had last seen him. His dark hair was all gone, replaced with patches of white on a bald pate. His face was creased like a raisin, his eyes sunken. He was barely the same man, and Peter couldn’t make sense of what he was saying.

  “But, Father,” Peter said, “I fought for Germany, just like you wanted.” In an instant, he was ten years old again, desperate for his father’s approval, desperate enough to ignore the clanging bells of his young conscience for just a little longer. He shook his head, reminding himself that he was, in fact, an adult now. An adult who loved his homeland but who regretted fighting for things that weren’t right. An adult who was sickened by the news reports that seemed to get worse by the day, reports of the atrocities committed in the concentration camps. An adult who wondered how his nation would ever atone for the murders of millions of innocent men, women, and children.

  “You did not fight,” his father growled. “You surrendered.”

  Peter felt bile rising in his throat as his father glowered at him. “We had no choice!”

  His father’s expression twisted. “There is always a choice, Peter. Always. A bullet in your head would have been more honorable. Just look at how Otto died. His parents, at least, got to bury a hero.”

  He backed away from the doorway and disappeared inside the house as Peter blinked back sudden tears for his lost friend. After a moment, Peter followed, shutting the winter out behind him, but he couldn’t shake off the deep chill that had settled in his bones. He brushed a few snowflakes from his collar as he moved into the kitchen, where a fire roared in the old stone fireplace. But something was off. The counters were too neat, as if no one had cooked there in a long time. His mother’s knitting needles were nowhere to be seen, nor were there scraps of yarn and fabric lying about, as there had been for Peter’s whole life.

  “Father?” he asked, a pit forming in his stomach as his father shoved past him and filled a kettle with water. “Where’s Mother?”

  His father stopped what he was doing and stood motionless for a second before whirling to face Peter. “Dead,” he spat. “Four years ago.”

  “Dead?”

  “That’s what I said, you fool.”

  Peter felt like he was in a terrible dream. “But . . . You never told me.”

  “Why would I?”

  Peter stared in disbelief. “Because she’s my mother.”

  His father’s eyes narrowed. “She died of a broken heart in November of 1943. You broke her heart, Peter. Your capture, your defeat, your cowardice. The shame overwhelmed her.”

  “No,” Peter whispered. “It’s not possible. She’s been dead for four years and I never knew?” He had never wondered why she didn’t write, because she was illiterate. The writing of letters was always his father’s job. And yes, his father’s letters had been curt and cold before they had stopped coming altogether. But never had Peter suspected that his father would keep something like this from him. It was unconscionable.

  “I don’t know why you bothered to come home at all,” his father said at last.

  “And what about Franz?”

  His father turned slowly. “Franz is a hero, Peter. Franz fought for Germany and wasn’t weak enough to be captured.”

  “So he is alive?”

  “Of course.”

  Peter exhaled his relief. But when his father didn’t say anything else, he didn’t either. He could feel his tears coming, and he knew his father’s disdain for him would only grow if he showed that sort of emotion. So he nodded, picked up his knapsack from where he’d set it down on a kitchen chair, and headed for the bedroom that he had once shared with Franz.

  His bed was gone, Peter realized immediately. There was just one mattress there, one that clearly belonged to Franz, whose clothes were strewn casually across the top of the quilt. Franz’s things marched across the bureau; his pinup photos of Ilse Werner and Marika Rökk were tacked to the walls. All traces of Peter had been erased. Still, suddenly exhausted, Peter collapsed onto the bed, breathing hard, and finally succumbed to tears.

  Not only was he devastated by the loss of his mother, but now, fear was nibbling at his heart. He hadn’t known she was dead for four years. Four years. He’d always guessed that when you loved someone deeply enough, you kept a part of their spirit with you. When their light was snuffed out, a piece of your own soul went dark too. But that hadn’t happened when his mother died—was there a possibility that Margaret was gone too, and he simply couldn’t tell?

  Night was falling by the time his father appeared in the bedroom doorway. He looked down at his son with disgust, and Peter knew his father could see the evidence of the tears he’d shed for his mother, for the past, and for the woman he’d left behind in America two and a half years earlier. “This came for you,” his father grunted, tossing him a crumpled envelope.

  Peter reached for it, and he could feel his eyes widen as he glimpsed the postmark. It had come from the United States! Margaret!

  As his father walked away, Peter pulled the letter from the envelope, which had already been torn open. His hands were shaking so violently that he had to steady himself with a few deep breaths before he began to read. The letter was indeed from Margaret, dated October 1945, four months after he’d seen her last. His eyes flew over the first two paragraphs, where she told him that she loved him and missed him, and alighted on the third, where she had written words that changed everything.

  I am carrying your child, Peter. I cannot hide it any longer, and I fear my father’s reaction when he learns what we’ve done, but I haven’t a single regret. For however wrong the world might believe our love to be, I know it is right. It is the only true thing, and as this life inside of me grows, I can feel you here with me. I know you will return and that I will see you again. I know I will feel your gentle embrace and feel the light of your love on our child. But for now, I know I must wait. I know I must carry on. And I will do whatever it takes to protect the life we made together.

  Forever yours,

  Margaret

  Peter stared at the words, and then he read them again and again. It was impossible, wasn’t it? He had lain with her only once. May 8, 19
45. Victory in Europe Day. He did the math quickly, realizing that if Margaret had carried the baby to term, his child would have been born in late January or early February of 1946. That meant that somewhere out there, he had a son or daughter who was nearly two years old now. Margaret had been raising that child alone, perhaps believing that Peter had turned his back on her, that he had betrayed her. But what if something happened to her? Or to the baby? Peter shook his head, banishing the ghosts of terrible thoughts. No, Margaret was out there, waiting for him, just like she said. He had to believe that.

  In that moment, something shifted within Peter. He hadn’t thought it possible to hate his own father, despite everything. His father was a Nazi, a terrible man, a punishing man, a cold man. Still, Peter had loved him in the way that only blood can make you see past evil. But now, everything was different. Peter had a child of his own out there somewhere, and his father had stolen that from him.

  He stormed out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, where his father was sitting at the kitchen table, his hands folded around a steaming mug. He looked up with a smirk when Peter entered the room, and Peter realized he’d been waiting, preparing for a fight.

  “When did the letter arrive, Father?” Peter demanded. “How could you keep something like this from me?”

  His father shrugged, his expression cold. “It came a couple years ago. And there were more. I burned the rest without reading them, and eventually, they stopped.”

  Peter’s entire body went cold. “How could you do such a thing?”

  His father stepped closer, his face suddenly twisted with rage, a vein throbbing in his sagging neck. “How could I? How could you? You are a traitor! You fornicated with the enemy!”

  “The war is behind us, Father! We lost! Germany lost.”

  When his father looked up at him, Peter had the sense that the man’s eyes were burning a hole right through him. “You had a baby with an American whore,” his father said, his voice flat. “How can I ever forgive that?”

  Peter could feel the anger pumping through him, energizing him, turning him into something he wasn’t. For a few terrifying seconds, he imagined what it would feel like to put his hands around his father’s neck and to choke the life out of the man. But he forced himself to calm down, to remember himself. If he let his fury turn him violent, he was no better than the man in front of him. So instead, Peter strode into the room he no longer shared with his brother and grabbed his knapsack from the bed. There was barely anything in it, but it contained every material possession he had. It would have to be enough. He returned to the kitchen and studied his father’s face for a moment. “I do not want your forgiveness,” Peter said. “For I have done nothing wrong.”

  His father laughed cruelly, and Peter could hear the front door opening and closing. A moment later, Franz walked into the kitchen, taller, sturdier, and older than Peter could have imagined. It had been six years since Peter had seen his younger brother, and for a moment, he was overcome.

  “Franz!” he exclaimed.

  Franz started to smile, but then he glanced at his father, whose face was purple with rage, and something in his expression darkened. “What is happening here?” Franz asked, his voice clipped. “What have you done, Peter?”

  “Your brother is defending his decision to impregnate a whore,” their father said.

  Peter swallowed hard. “Franz, you do not agree with the things Father is saying, do you?”

  Franz looked from his brother to his father, and then he looked at the floor. “You have brought our family great shame, Peter,” he said.

  Peter stared at him for a moment, his own heart singing a quiet swan song of grief. So that was that. His father had turned against him, and now his brother had too. He took a deep breath. “From this moment forward, I am no longer a Dahler,” he said.

  His father’s jaw flexed and tightened, and Franz looked up, startled.

  “I am ashamed to be your son,” Peter continued, looking his father in the eye for what he knew would be the last time. He turned to his brother. “And from you, Franz, I would have expected more.”

  Neither man replied. They merely looked away, and after a moment, Peter nodded to himself, hoisted his pack on his shoulder, and walked out the front door, into the snowy, frozen night. He didn’t know where he would go, but he knew he couldn’t go back.

  Now, the only thing that was certain was that Peter would find his way back to America, whatever it took. Somewhere out there, he had a woman who loved him and a child. And that was all that mattered.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  * * *

  By early afternoon, my father had booked us tickets on a nonstop Delta flight to Atlanta that was scheduled to take off just past ten the next morning. That left us the rest of the day to sightsee, and so we strolled through the English Garden, looked at the science and technology exhibits at the Deutsches Museum, and had beers in the Hofbräuhaus. We ended our day with a climb up the south tower of the Frauenkirche, where we could see Munich spreading out below us, all the way to the edge of the Alps. Peter’s hometown of Holzkirchen lay somewhere to the south.

  “Breathtaking,” my father said as we began our long descent from the Frauenkirche’s tower. “This city is breathtaking.”

  “I wish we didn’t have to leave so soon,” I replied, startling myself a bit with the words. I hadn’t expected to be comfortable with my father, and I was grateful to him for not taking the opportunity to push harder on the boundaries of our relationship. But my reluctance to leave ran deeper than that: I just couldn’t quite imagine being in Atlanta again. The longer I’d been gone, the more the city had begun to feel like kryptonite to me. “Mom’s buried there, you know. In Atlanta,” I said.

  My father stopped and turned to me. We were alone in a dark stairwell leading back to the ground. “I know, honey. I’ve been to her grave.”

  I felt a lump in my throat. “You have?”

  “Several times.”

  “But—” I paused, struggling to understand. “But I thought you hated her.”

  “I didn’t hate her, Emily,” my father said softly. “I hated myself, and I thought Monica was the way out. It was too late by the time I realized what a mistake I was making. I owe your mom a million apologies.”

  I didn’t know what to say. “I haven’t been back since the year she died, you know. I just finished high school and left.” I felt like an idiot as I blinked back tears. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

  My father put a hand on my shoulder and kept it there. “I’m sorry, Emily. I didn’t know you hadn’t returned. This must be very difficult for you.”

  For a split second, I almost told him about the pregnancy. I almost told him that the real reason I left was to have my baby far away from the eyes of those who knew me, far away from Nick, far away from the memories that haunted me. But my father spoke before I had a chance to.

  “Is that why you don’t want to go to Atlanta?” he asked. “Does it have to do with your mom?”

  “How do you know I don’t want to go to Atlanta?”

  “I could see it in your eyes at Franz Dahler’s place.” He hesitated. “And I can see it now.”

  I regarded him warily for a moment. “It’s not because of Mom,” I finally said.

  “Okay,” he said after a while, when I didn’t elaborate. He took his hand off my shoulder, and suddenly, I felt exhausted. When he began walking down the stairs again, I followed, feeling strangely incomplete.

  That night, after dinner at our hotel bar, my father and I had ordered after-dinner drinks—Laphroaig fifteen-year scotch on the rocks for me, and Rémy Martin cognac for him—and were talking about what time we’d meet in the lobby the next morning for our ride to the airport when my father stopped midsentence and put a hand on my forearm. “No pressure, Emily, but do you want to tell me about Atlanta before we’re there?”

  “No.” But that wasn’t true. I wanted to share the story of Catherine with him, if only to
lessen the weight on my own shoulders. Myra was the only one who knew, which left me carrying the burden alone most of the time. The search for my own grandfather—who had missed my father’s childhood in the same way I had missed my daughter’s—was bringing it all to the surface.

  “Okay.” There was something about the look in my father’s eyes that told me he wouldn’t judge me. “But whatever it is, I’m here if you ever want to talk.”

  Was I being foolishly optimistic? Maybe. But the words were already rolling off my tongue before I could stop them. “I had a child once,” I said.

  “A child?” Time seemed to freeze for a moment. I watched his face, tensing for a sign that my words had shocked him enough to make him retreat. But his hand stayed on my arm, and his expression didn’t grow judgmental. It grew sad. “Oh, honey. What happened?” he asked after a long silence.

  I looked down at his hand, thinking for a minute that it felt like a tether to reality. “Not long after Mom died, I . . . I moved to Florida with Grandma Margaret and gave the baby up for adoption.” I paused and added, “I just walked away from her like she didn’t matter at all.”

  “Oh, Emily.” His eyes filled with tears. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  “It’s not like you made me give her away,” I said.

  “But I wasn’t there for you, and I can never change that.”

  “No. You can’t.”

  He was silent for a moment. “The baby was a girl?”

  I nodded.

  “Do you know what happened to her?”

  “No.” I took a deep breath. “She just turned eighteen, and I’ve been posting on all the adoption sites and looking for posts that might be from her. But maybe she doesn’t want anything to do with her birth mother. Why would she, right? Maybe she feels like I didn’t want her. Maybe she thinks I never thought of her again.”