“What do you think?” he asked Rina.
“I don’t think they’d mind. But if you’d feel uncomfortable, we can walk around for a few minutes.”
Before they could decide, the door opened. The woman who came out was tall and thin, wearing a housecoat printed with calla lilies. Her white hair was tied into a long ponytail, her complexion fair with rosy cheeks. “You are Lieutenant and Mrs. Decker?”
“Hi,” Rina said from the curb. “We’re a little early.”
“No, no, it’s fine.” Her accent was light and crisp. “Come in, please.”
The pathway to the front was narrow. Decker told Rina to go first. The woman introduced herself as Anika, then stepped aside, allowing them to walk into a compact living room with blond hardwood floors and yellow washed walls. The furniture was simple in design and made by someone with a utilitarian eye. The couch and chairs were straight backed and upholstered in tiny blue checks, holding a couple of rudimentary pillows. The coffee table was a trunk, with hand-painted flowers and swirls, which looked to be genuinely old. The walls were hung with oil still lifes, mostly florals: original paintings but not very good. There were also a couple of sketches and a map of Denmark. No family photos. Maybe she kept them in the bedroom.
The air was heavy with the smell of cabbage.
“Lunch is not ready.” Anika flailed birdlike arms. “I do apologize.”
Rina smiled. “It’s not a problem.” Up close, Anika was wrinkled, her face furrowed and drooping with fatless skin. But her blue eyes sparkled, as did her teeth, though Rina suspected they were dentures. “The food smells wonderful, Miss Lubke, but unfortunately we can’t eat it. We’re kosher-”
“Ach!But of course.”
“I insist that you eat when it’s ready.” Rina inhaled deeply. “I’m sure it’s my loss. What is it?”
“Hvidkälsrouletter-cabbage roll with meat. I can make up some vegetarian.”
“No, no, no,” Rina said. “Please don’t bother. If you want to serve us anything, I wouldn’t mind some tea.”
“And you, Lieutenant Decker?”
“Tea is fine.”
“Kommt sofort!Right away.” She moved with a sprightly walk. A minute later, she returned from the unseen kitchen. “I put the water up to boil. Marta is in church. We were odd-Lutherans in Bavaria. The state is very Catholic, their churches rococo in style because it is near Italy. Also, there were many Russian aristocrats in Bavaria, so the churches have that onion-dome Russian architecture. Inside, they are filled with marble and gold, with angels and cherubs floating in a sky that is painted on the ceiling. It is not my idea of Heaven.”
Her speech had the singsong inflections of those who spoke Nordic languages.
“Anyway, Marta will return soon. Ah, the kettle boils. I’ll be back.”
After she left, Rina whispered, “How old is she?”
“Eighty-four or -five. Maybe even closer to ninety.”
“The woman has energy.”
“So does your mother. They must have grown them strong in the Old Country.”
Rina tapped her toe. Neither she nor Peter had sat down. Anika came back with a tray. “Sit, sit. Please.”
Decker sat. The sofa was as uncomfortable as it looked, with its stiff back and no lumbar support. By using pillows, Rina managed to ease herself into a decent position. Anika poured tea, then perched on the edge of a chair, her spine ramrod straight.
Maybe discomfort was a cultural thing.
Rina sipped tea. “Thank you for seeing us.”
“Thank you for contacting us. I must say I was very shocked. Who thinks to hear from seventy-year-old ghosts? That’s how long it has been since your mother I’ve seen.”
“I can understand how surprised you must have felt.”
“Very.” She poured herself a mug of tea and sipped slowly. “It brought back memories very hidden. I don’t remember your grandmother’s death individually, but the deaths as a group I remember. I think that they scared my mother. Soon after your mother moves away, we move… to Hamburg.”
“You told me you married an Englishman,” Decker said. “How’d that happen?”
“Ach,such a long andtraurigstory.”
“ ‘Traurig’ is sad,” Rina said.
Decker said, “I didn’t mean to pry.”
Anika smiled. “But you didn’t. I wrote to you in my e-mail that I married an Englishman.” She thought a moment. “The people are all dead. I’ll tell it to you. In Hamburg, I met my husband when I was seventeen.”
“The Englishman,” Rina said.
“No, no, a German man. We got married. It was not happily ever after like theBrudersGrimm. Right after the wedding, it is 1933 and Germany elects Hitler, who brings us into war. No excuses, Germany deserved what it got because our parents elected the demagogue.”
She shook her head.
“If you asked any German people after World War Two if they voted for Hitler, they all say no. No, no, no, we didn’t vote for him. Nobody voted for him! No one knows how he got power!”
She waved her hand disgustedly in the air.
“My husband was drafted and captured as a POW. He was astaatsbeamte-a civil servant-but because his title contained the word ‘staats,’ the English thought he was some important state official. In a camp, they put him with others that hadstaatsin their title. They played cards and talked philosophy the entire time. Meanwhile, from him I don’t hear… maybe a year. I am young and stupid, and after the British invaded the North, I get younger and stupider and fall for an Englishman because he wears the winning uniform. I blame my parents. If they had not moved, I would have probably fallen in love with an American soldier. I would have been better off.”
Rina smiled and nodded, but Decker shrugged confusion.
“Toward the end of the war,” Rina explained, “Germany was being blitzed from three fronts: the British in the North, the Russians in the East, and the Americans in the South. That’s why the Russians liberated Auschwitz and the Americans liberated Dachau. So she’s saying that if she had stayed in Munich, which is in the South, she would have met an American.”
“Ah, I see,” Decker said.
Anika sighed. “I get a divorce from my poor German husband, who can’t believe that his young wife runs off with the enemy.” A sigh. “I hurt Hans very bad. Later, I hear a very nice girl he remarries. They have four children. He is very happy… much happier than me. Serves me right. Where was I in the story?”
“You just divorced your German husband,” Decker reminded her.
“Ah, yes. I marry Cyril Emerson and moved to a small town in Devonshire. You can think how much the English working class loves a German girl. I was miserable. So then we move back to Hamburg, and he is miserable. Finally, we reach a compromise. Hamburg is not so far from Denmark. So we move to Copenhagen and we’re both miserable. Still, we live in Denmark for thirty years. I birth two sons who move to America. So at fifty-six, I divorce Cyril, return to the name Lubke, and off to America I move. To St. Louis because Marta is living there.”
“How did Marta wind up in St. Louis?”
“Her husband was an executive in Anheuser-Busch. Marta loves St. Louis. I don’t like St. Louis. It is searing hot in the summer and bitter cold in the winter. Snow is nice, but the city has no mountains except the Ozarks… very sorry mountains. Ten years ago, I came to Solvang for a visit. After being in Copenhagen so long, it was very familiar for me. I loved the cooler temperature. I love the real mountains. Here, a home I found. Twice a year, I visit Marta. Twice a year, Marta visits me. She gets the good deal.”
Rina laughed. “I think so.”
“Would you like more tea?”
“I’d love some more tea,” Rina said.
Anika picked up the teapot and disappeared into the kitchen.
Rina held in a laugh. “What a character!”
“She has a personality,” Decker said.
She came back several minutes later with scalding hot tea. “Ah, the steam, the aroma… only thing English do well is tea.” She poured three refills. “I try to think back that far, Mrs. Decker, to the time of the deaths. It was a very peculiar time.”