Colors of Christmas Read online

  “Then I’d like to learn Mrs. Schmidt’s recipes,” Sam said.

  “Once Carly has done what she is trained to do,” Astrid said, “and I can stand on my own two feet, we shall have some lessons in the kitchen. I’ll even wear a hairnet.”

  Sam laughed and said good-bye, lingering longer when he caught Carly’s eye. Astrid watched both their faces as Carly watched Sam leave the room and let the door close behind him.

  “I like Sam,” Astrid said.

  Carly nodded as she got out the marbles and a rocking board. The rest of the therapy hour would consist of trying to get her foot to comply with curious tasks.

  Mrs. Schmidt. Astrid thought of her often and warmly, despite the circumstances in which they had known each other. Astrid only met her because the Americans came through and moved into the brewery, forcing the family to find other lodging. They ended up in Mrs. Schmidt’s barn.

  Before the Americans were hundreds of German soldiers. They knew the end was close and begged the farm families for civilian clothes so they could try to get home to their own families without notice. Their uniforms piled up in an empty stable. Astrid began going to look at the heap every afternoon to see how much bigger it had become. For the first time, she wondered what it was like to be a soldier at war. When she sat in a rickety chair in the brewery eating an egg her mother had bartered for with some of Papa’s sweeteners, she fretted about those uniforms. Wouldn’t the village get in trouble for helping the soldiers? Shouldn’t somebody hide them—even just under the hay instead of on top of it?

  And then one day the heavy rumbling started. Curious children came out of the small homes to see for themselves. Frightened children squeezed their mothers’ hands. Tanks and trucks and jeeps and every kind of military vehicle came over the hill not too far off. Soon the rumble would become a full-throated roar. The village mayor ordered everyone to take shelter in the damp, dark cellar of the brewery. The entire village squeezed in—infants, children, the elderly, men, women. They feared for our lives. Once everyone was in, the heavy wood and metal door was slammed shut and secured from the inside. Only two lanterns lit the awful hole of darkness.

  The mayor was the sole person who remained outside. He waited at the entrance to the village with a white flag, ready to surrender his town to the invading Americans in the most peaceful manner possible—or at the risk of his own life. Inside the mountain cellar, the villagers held their breaths, not speaking but only listening for the rumbling that had sent them all scurrying. The convoy of tanks and trucks seemed endless, but eventually the sound halted. Inside the cellar, they heard nothing. Papa was the first to dare leave the cellar, go into the family’s adjoining living quarters, and peek out from behind curtains. So far the Americans hadn’t left their vehicles. But neither did they aim their weapons at the mayor.

  The mayor urged his wife to offer a basket of fresh eggs to the soldiers in one tank. Satisfied there would be no shooting, people straggled out of the cellar. Papa and Harald went first, as they so often did in those days. When the American soldiers saw the children, they threw candy—their own rations—to them. Children shrieked in joy.

  The relief was temporary. The Americans occupied whatever structures they chose and filled all the best buildings, displacing the occupants. The streets filled with people with nowhere to go. The mayor went from house to house demanding that anyone still in their own homes make room for others. Astrid’s family lost the brewery and ended up in the back part of a farmhouse, above the stable, once again starting with nothing they could call their own for the third time in six weeks.

  The Americans quickly got down to business. All the men in the village were interviewed.

  And then Papa was taken. He was in his house slippers when they came for him. Astrid ran after them trying to give Papa his warm coat, but the Americans didn’t slow down. When a large army truck passed by, loaded with German men, Astrid knew her father must be on that truck. Mama stood beside her, shaking, and Astrid put Papa’s coat around Mama’s shoulders. Papa hated the Nazis, but he held membership in the party. It was the only way he was allowed to do business in Würzburg. If he hadn’t paid his membership dues, his business would have been closed. He would have been shot for not following orders, or sent to the Russian front or a concentration camp.

  Villagers had little information about where the Americans took the men or when they might return. The village swelled with evacuees from bombed German cities, and hundreds of Hungarians lined the streets with no food and no place to live.

  If it hadn’t been for Mrs. Schmidt, the farmer’s wife whose own husband was a prisoner of war in the custody of the Americans, Astrid wasn’t sure how her family would have survived the end of the Nazi regime—the only world she’d ever known.

  CHAPTER 12

  Slowly the apartment was coming together. Alex had hung all the clothes in the closet, but Astrid didn’t find his system— or lack of one—helpful, and she reordered her clothing the way she preferred, with the current season easiest to access. There weren’t many options in the kitchen, but she flip-flopped the contents of two drawers. The apartment had two large windows with sills wide enough for a collection of knickknacks. Peter had given her many of them—a tiny musical carousel, glass bottles in colors that caught the sunlight, a hand-painted teapot, a slender wooden giraffe. After forty years, choosing which items to bring to a one-bedroom apartment hadn’t been easy. Alex and Ingrid took some items of sentimental value, and more were packed in boxes in the storage unit until Alex could go through them. An estate sale that involved allowing strangers to wander through her house dispensed with several bedroom sets, excess kitchen and decor items, and patio furniture.

  In the apartment, the refrigerator remained empty, and the only food on the shelves were a few slices of smashed bread, half a box of crackers, and dried dates that turned up in a box of utensils. Even when it came to the contents of Astrid’s kitchen cupboards, only what would stage well had remained until the day she moved out. On moving day, Alex had cleared the cupboards, likely reasoning she didn’t need food because her meals were included in the monthly fees. Again Astrid wondered if she’d given up driving too soon, though even if she had a car right now her injured foot would have prevented her from driving. Astrid’s apartment was in the “independent living” section of Sycamore Hills, but how independent could a person be if she couldn’t even whip up a couple of scrambled eggs?

  She wouldn’t complain. A bus from Sycamore Hills went to a local shopping center twice a week and the mall once a month. As soon as she was fully ambulatory, she could buy a few groceries as often as she liked. Apartment 231 at Sycamore Hills would be her final address, and she would live simply. Even this small apartment was a palace compared to some places she’d lived.

  Two unlabeled boxes remained for her to sort. She lifted one to the table and opened the flaps, hoping the gold ornaments of her childhood would turn up. Instead she found photo albums. The efficient approach would have been to simply put the albums in the bookcase, but Astrid opened the first one—the oldest one. Her father had loved his camera. He was never without it on vacation or the family’s Sunday recreation, but it was a wonder any of the photographs had survived the family’s destitute moves after the war.

  Christmas was Papa’s favorite time to take photographs of his children. After he trimmed the tree with fresh wonderment every year, Harald, Astrid, and Uta lined up in front of it for pictures. Other photos showed the delight on their faces when they saw their gifts, and still others the holiday table laid with great care.

  Christmas of 1945 was missing because Papa wasn’t with the family that year. They had no word where he was taken, but surely after the Americans met Papa they would see he was no threat and never had been. He only wanted to care for his family. In time he would return, but that Christmas was gone forever.

  Days passed, then weeks and months. The space at the back of Mrs. Schmidt’s farmhouse was connected to the hay barn.
When they moved in, a stove for cooking and heating was the only thing there. They had to be resourceful. Even if they’d had any money, currency was drastically devalued after the war. Astrid hadn’t felt sorry for her family in particular. How could she? There were millions just like them who also lost everything overnight during air raids or at the hands of the Russians. Now the Americans had all the men, even if they hadn’t been active in the military.

  Harald was a slight fourteen-year-old, but he found work on a large farm in exchange for food and a place to sleep. Mama, Astrid, and Uta stayed with Mrs. Schmidt, venturing into the nearby forest daily to gather sticks and pinecones to burn in the stove so they could cook what little food they rummaged up or to heat water to clean up in a borrowed large tin. Astrid took on the family’s laundry once a month and soaked up everything she could learn about housekeeping from Mrs. Schmidt.

  Papa was taken in the spring, and the harsh demands of an uncertain, primitive existence for the family passed the months quickly. For Christmas, they found a little tree and made a wooden stand. There were no gold ornaments and tinsel and candles that year. Pinecones, nuts, and little apples were the makeshift decorations. Even without a photo, and all these years later, Astrid could picture that little tree in the frigid room above the stable. For many years that Christmas memory made her picture what kind of stable Jesus was born in. Perhaps there hadn’t even been a stove to warm the Holy Family.

  Astrid turned the pages of the photo album slowly, lingering over each memory they evoked. She left it lying open at the gap where 1945 should have been.

  A rap on the door redirected her attention. If it was Betty or one of the others looking for another hand at cards, she would decline. She wanted to be done with these boxes and concentrate on thinking of Apartment 231 as home.

  “Just a minute,” Astrid called out. Transferring herself to the scooter and getting it turned in the right direction wasn’t a swift task. It was Carly at the door.

  “Did I forget an appointment?” Astrid asked.

  Carly shook her head. “It’s just paperwork. I should have had you sign a few things yesterday, and it slipped my mind.”

  “Come in.” Astrid rolled away from the door. “I have a pen here somewhere.”

  Carly looked around. “It looks nice in here.”

  “I’m not quite finished unpacking,” Astrid said, “and I’ll have to get help putting things on the walls.”

  “Maybe I could help,” Carly said. “I’m pretty handy with a hammer and nails.”

  “So far a hammer and nails haven’t surfaced. I suspect my son didn’t think I would need them.”

  “I could bring some from home.”

  Astrid had rolled back to the table and returned to the chair. Carly stood beside her and put the forms in front of her.

  “It’s just consent for us to treat you, HIPPA notification, and all the usual papers,” Carly said. “Documentation will be my undoing.”

  Astrid picked up a pen and began glancing at what she was about to sign.

  “Wow,” Carly said, “that looks like an old album.”

  “It is. I brought the photos from Germany as a newlywed and bought the album with some of the first money I earned in the US”

  “May I?”

  “Please.” Astrid signed four papers as Carly flipped a few pages.

  “Childhood memories?” Carly said.

  Astrid nodded. “You could say so, though my childhood ended the night the British bombed Würzburg. All the things I took for granted as a child that adults would do for me were suddenly mine to do.”

  “I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you.”

  “I had never known a Germany without the Nazis in power,” Astrid said, “and the Germany that was left after the war was no country at all. Cities were piles of rubble. Roads were destroyed. No one had any money. There were no jobs because there were no businesses. Hard times leave you no time for childish fun.”

  “What about school?” Carly picked up the signed forms and tapped them in one stack against the table.

  Astrid shook her head. “No schools that year. They opened again the next year, but I never really got to go back to school for any length of time. I was no longer a child with the freedom to decide I didn’t like my strict teachers. I had to make my way like everyone else.”

  “What about your father?” Carly sat in another chair and leaned in for more of the story.

  “He was gone for about a year, and then one day he turned up. He had lost so much weight we almost didn’t recognize him. He was in terrible health and never wanted to tell us about what happened after the Americans took him. Even Mama didn’t press him. We were just glad to have him back.”

  “I’m sorry you all had to go through that.”

  “My aunt came and nursed my father back to health. After a few weeks, he wanted to go back to Würzburg to check on his property. We didn’t know what things would be like after more than a year, but I didn’t want him to go alone. I didn’t want him out of my sight.”

  “So you went with him?”

  “Yes. His plan was to rebuild. But first he had to find his papers. Then he could start again at the beginning.”

  “Such courage,” Carly said. “All of you. Such courage.”

  “We didn’t think of it as courage. It was just what we had to do. Just take the next step, do the next thing.”

  The difficult years were hardly over. But the stunned look on Carly’s face told Astrid the young woman had heard enough for today.

  “My faith got me through,” Astrid said. “Faith fed my hope.”

  “I don’t really have faith these days,” Carly murmured. “Hope is for other people.”

  “Hope is for all people,” Astrid said.

  “I’m not so sure.” Carly’s phone buzzed in the holder at her waist, and she bent her head to look at the message. “They’re looking for me. I have to go.”

  “Of course,” Astrid said. “You came for simple signatures and I prattled on. I’ll see you for our next session.”

  Carly stood, walked to the door, and turned as if she wanted to say something. Astrid waited, sure she saw a tear in the young woman’s eye. But Carly only waved and went into the hallway.

  CHAPTER 13

  Morning number six. How many mornings would it take for it to feel normal to wake in this unfamiliar room and navigate unfamiliar mental paths? Astrid’s brain still wanted to get out of bed on the other side and take twelve steps across the bedroom to the adjoining bath. Everything felt backward. And once she could manage an outing to the grocery store, she would buy breakfast options to keep in the apartment. No one who was more than eighty years old should have to set an alarm clock in order not to miss breakfast.

  Astrid caught the tail end of the Saturday breakfast service and asked for oatmeal and fruit. Six days of meals in the Sycamore Hills dining room were sufficient for her to have developed table preferences. Betty’s Brood, as Astrid thought of the group of friends where Betty was the instigator, always welcomed her to their preferred round table, but when she came in off their schedule, she was happy to sit on her own at a small table near the window and look outside. The ground was white with yesterday’s snow, but Astrid could see the outlines of the flower beds and vegetable garden that would return in spring strength.

  After breakfast, Astrid rolled her scooter into the lobby. Gas fireplaces throughout the building burned from before breakfast until late evening, and Astrid eased herself into an armchair beside the lobby’s enticing blaze with a view of the enchanting, towering gold Christmas tree. It was as good a place as any to ponder what she would have been doing at home and how to fill her days here in this strange place.

  She nearly didn’t recognize Carly when she strode down the hall bundled in her winter jacket, the hood still up and gloves hiding her hands. Astrid offered a smile, and Carly caught it.

  “I’m not so old that I don’t know this is Saturday,” Astrid said. “
Do you do therapy even on the weekends?”

  Carly shook her head. “I’m behind on my documentation. If I don’t get caught up before Monday, I’ll be twice as behind.”

  “Ah.” Astrid turned her palms up. “The quest for a fresh start to the work week.”

  Carly laughed. “The bane of my existence.”

  “Paperwork. A universal dilemma, it seems to me.”

  “It used to be actual papers,” Carly said, removing her gloves and flipping the hood off her head. “We still scan in a few things, but a lot of it is electronic, and the system knows when I had an appointment and whether I entered any notes afterward.”

  “Big Brother,” Astrid said.

  Carly laughed again, and it struck Astrid that the young woman didn’t often have a smile on her face. It was Astrid’s conviction that everyone should laugh at something every day, and if she could evoke mirth in the people around her, she would.

  The automatic front doors to Sycamore Hills opened, allowing a blast of crisp winter cold. Sam, the cook, paused just inside to stamp gray parking lot slush off his feet. Astrid lifted a hand to wave, and Carly rotated toward the door.

  “Well, if it isn’t the German cook,” Sam said, grinning.

  His words were meant for Astrid, but his eyes went quickly to Carly, whose long wavy dark hair now sprawled across the limp hood of her jacket. Carly’s cheeks pinked. One corner of Astrid’s mouth pulled away in a smile. She and Heinz had looked at each other like that—and she’d been much younger than Carly. Maybe it was Sam who could get to the bottom of why Carly didn’t often smile.

  “I thought perhaps the B squad did the cooking on weekends,” Astrid said.

  “That’s the theory.” Sam shoved his gloves into his jacket pockets as he glanced between Astrid and Carly. “I left menus, but my assistant cook is having trouble finding the ingredients I listed. I’m sure I ordered everything she needs, so I figured I would just pop in and sort it out.”

  “Do you live nearby?” Astrid said.