A German Luger was at the top of the box, and my heart skittered as I placed it securely in the bin. I had next to no knowledge of firearms and didn’t want to risk disaster to see if it was loaded. There were a number of medals, postcards, a couple of watches, and other little trinkets I’d have to ask him about. A delicate carved wooden model of a quaint timbered house had miraculously survived, but wouldn’t fare well with much handling. I protected the little structure, roughly the size of a small birdhouse, in a generous length of bubble wrap left over from my move. A Kodak Ektra in pristine condition was tossed in with the photos, and I smiled. As soon as Dad had the chance to look things over, I’d put Greg’s name on it with a sticky tag. There wasn’t any need to ask if he was interested; my ex-husband was a photography nut and would be glad to have this remembrance of his former father-in-law. The photos seemed as though they’d been developed and left in their envelopes without having ever been looked at, so I suspected they were in as impeccable condition as the camera that took them.
I didn’t want to go through the photos without Dad, but I peeked inside one of the envelopes to see if acid in its paper had damaged the contents. I would hate to lug a box of ruined photos to the home and have him be disappointed when we opened them. I was pleased to see the figures in the photo on the top of the stack were still as sharp and crisp as one could have expected from the technology of the day, and hoped the rest had fared as well. Though Dad had never expressed much of an interest in photography when I was a kid, apart from making sure my childhood and his flowers were well documented, he clearly had talent beyond what I had ever seen.
Most of the snaps were of men in uniform, smiling at Dad, who preserved a moment of mirth in their youthful faces in the midst of a horrific war. The one picture that caught my attention was of a beautiful blond woman, petite with fine features that the camera adored. A man stood next to her, his arm draped around her casually. He looked down at her and she up at him in adoration. Her figure betrayed that she was visibly pregnant, despite the loose dress she wore. I had no idea who the woman was in the photo, but the man was my father.
CHAPTER FOUR
HOMECOMING
JOHANNA
June 1937
Outside Berchtesgaden, Germany
Faster, faster, faster. I willed the gleaming Mercedes Roadster forward, though it wove its way up the mountain roads with the speed and grace of a panther under Harald’s skilled hand. I preferred to be behind the wheel. And that was a distant second to being behind the throttle. I gripped the brown leather handle on the door with my gloved hand, glad he couldn’t see the white of my knuckles.
“Relax, Liebling. The farm isn’t going anywhere. We’ll be there soon.” My new husband reached over and patted my knee. I looked over at the chiseled, even features of his face.
Husband still didn’t seem real. We met at university five years ago, when I was entering my third year of studies in engineering and mathematics at the University of Munich and he was a young lecturer in history. He gave a talk about the Roman Empire, and though he spoke about the politics and social structure of people who had been dead for nearly two thousand years, and though I didn’t have any real interest in the subject, I sat engrossed for the entire two-hour lecture. I would never have the passion for history that Harald did, nor would he have my obsession with the mechanics of flight, but in those two hours, I grew to respect his ability to fascinate a classroom. Our paths kept crossing over the years, and acquaintance grew into something more tender.
I loosened my grip on the door handle. “I know, Knuddelbär. I can’t help it. Just drive as fast as you can,” I urged.
“I’m not going to attract the attention of the police. Not with their short tempers these days,” Harald said; his eyes were fixed on the road, but he turned to wink at me. “I’m afraid they won’t find me as charming as you do.”
“Fools,” I said, leaning over to kiss him as he navigated the narrow streets that joined the network of farms on the hills outside of Berchtesgaden.
“Too kind a word for that lot.” His face grew gray for a few seconds. “‘Thugs’ is more apt.”
“Quiet now,” I said. “If you were to slip and say such a thing with the wrong ears listening . . . I don’t want to learn firsthand how accurate your description is.”
“You’re right,” Harald said, reaching for my hand. I slid closer to him on the bench seat. He’d grown vocal in his dislike for the regime, angered for my sake and that of his family. His family were of the old guard—I was now a countess by marriage. Hitler had no love for the aristocrats that he held responsible for Germany’s defeat in the Great War. The blood in my veins, on the other hand, was an even more sinister threat, according to this new regime.
We never spoke of the supposed stain on my pedigree, but I was getting more and more questions at work. My father’s father had been Jewish by birth, though raised Catholic. We were able to keep his heritage a secret by claiming the records had been lost in a fire, but I knew the day was coming soon where I would have to apply for honorary Aryan status to continue my work. The mention of the forms caused Harald to grind his teeth, but without them, my work at the German aerospace center, Deutsche Versuchsanstalt für Luftfahrt, or DVL as we called it, would come to an end. Despite the plea from the government for married women to stay home and have children, I couldn’t abandon my work. Designing the best planes in the world—the fastest, the safest, the most agile—was the reason I was put on this earth.
I looked over at Harald, his expression serious but relaxed as he navigated the winding roads. He had visited the farm only a few times before and had spent far too little time with my family. We’d hoped for a proper church wedding where Papa could have walked me down the aisle. Mama would have cried decorously into her embroidered handkerchief. Little Metta would have looked at my white gown and flowers with affectionate envy, while Oskar would have smirked at the whole affair like the imp he was. But Papa died shortly after we announced our engagement, so celebration would have been vulgar. This was our first trip back since the funeral, and our first as man and wife. I expected our stay would be of some duration, as Mama had begged us to come home as soon as we could manage, to help her with some of the details of Papa’s estate. We left as soon as Harald’s term was over, and I hoped we’d be able to stay at least a few weeks of the long summer.
We pulled up to the farmhouse, its balcony spilling over with a riot of purple and yellow spring blossoms. I sprinted to the door even before Harald could get the car completely stopped.
“Mama!” I called.
Mama emerged from the kitchen, a dishrag still in her hands. She dropped it on the floor and dashed to my outstretched arms. “Oh, my little Jojo! Let me look at you!” She spun me around to look at my form in the new blue woolen suit Harald had bought me as a wedding gift. “Not my little Jojo anymore, are you? My Johanna has become a woman. How did this happen so quickly?”
“As it always does, Mama, while we are living our lives.” I clutched her to my chest, soaking in all the hugs I’d missed since our last visit.
Harald came to the door, a suitcase in each hand. I rushed to his side to relieve him of mine.