As if he were thinking the same thing, Gunther reached down and picked up the girl, who wrapped herself around him and rested her head on his shoulder, her eyes watery and a finger in her mouth. “Shhh,” he said in a low voice as he rubbed the girl’s back. He exhaled loudly, then, and steadied himself, as if wondering how to proceed.
“I do not know where to start,” he said with a heavy sigh, his voice low. “But I will try. My father was mathematics professor, as I told you, at University in Heidelberg. He was part of intelligenz of German society at this time. When the war broke out, he did not believe in this war, but he was anyway forced to fight in it. He was very patriotic, but he thought the Kaiser had stumbled . . .” Gunther paused here, seeming to search for the right words, “. . . lost his way. Victoria was, you know maybe, the Kaiser’s grandmother. The people of England and Germany were very close before the war; my mother was English. How could my father fight them? And yet he was made to. He was killed. He had no idea how to fight,” he said sadly, rubbing Anna’s back again.
“I’m sorry,” Elsie murmured, realizing that it was the first words she had spoken since entering the cottage.
“My mother,” Gunther went on, after catching Elsie’s eye for just a moment, “especially as English woman, had no way of making money except to take in sewing and rent out rooms in our very old . . .” he made a gesture as if searching for the right word . . . “big? rambling? . . . house that was no good for nothing else. A big house full of books and some said Geister . . . ach . . . how do you say? . . . ghosts,” he said with a little flourish of triumph. “When I became older, I asked my mother why she did not return to England after war. She said she could not leave my father buried somewhere near border of France in mass grave. Also, that Heidelberg had been her home from time she was little girl. There is nothing and no one for her in England, she said. And so we rented out rooms, mostly to students, who became like older brothers or sisters to me. One or two were not so nice, but mostly they were kind; that or they ignored me. I liked to sit in corner and listen to them debate politics of day or discuss literature—Rilke versus Schiller, as example—before Mother would find me and put me to bed.
“Then about five years ago,” he continued methodically, “just as I am finishing my degree at university, a young woman by name of Liesel Klinkhammer came to rent room from us. She was not student, but she had job in one of the cafés in town. How she can afford this room, I do not know. Maybe it was that my mother felt sorry for her. I was not at home most days, either at university studying or working at local school, where I had just found job as a teacher.”
Anna murmured, then, and Elsie watched as Gunther began to sway a bit, rocking the child until she quieted.
“When I did see her,” he went on more quietly, “Fraulein Klinkhammer rarely speaks to me. She was very quiet and keeps to herself, but little bit by little bits, she begins to trust my mother. She tells her things. She was what my mother would call a Bauer . . . peasant? Like poor person. She tells my mother where she comes from. From a farm outside of city. As a young girl, she fell in love with boy from next farm over, she tells my mother. Heinrich is his name. He left countryside to travel to Heidelberg to find work. Fraulein Klinkhammer was . . . how do you say it? Verrückt in der Liebe? . . . crazy in love for him? . . . is what my mother said. So the fraulein followed this Heinrich to Heidelberg and found job and room. It is impressive, no?”
Without waiting for Elsie to answer, he went on. “My mother was very glad for the money. But she told Fraulein Klinkhammer to forget this man, to go home. As it was, Fraulein Klinkhammer did not listen to her. And you can take guess what happened,” he said, shifting his eyes toward the back of Anna’s head, still resting on his shoulder.
The little girl looked to be asleep now, as evidenced by not only her closed eyes, but also by her slack body, her arms drooped loosely around Gunther’s shoulders instead of tightly gripping his neck as they had just a few minutes before. Gunther shifted the weight of her and went on in a quieter voice.
“No one knew the fraulein was with child—even my mother, which is impressive. You would know this if you have met her, my mother. It was my mother that delivered the baby—right there in our house. She hears fraulein screaming and runs upstairs to find a big Unordnun . . .” Gunther shrugged, searching for the right word. “Mess.” He looked at Elsie again as if to gauge her understanding. “Lucky my mother was there,” he went on. “Poor Fraulein Klinkhammer was keeping pregnancy a secret, not eating much food, and baby came out little, only four pounds. My mother predicts she will not live, but, yes, she did live.” He kissed the side of the sleeping Anna’s head, bringing a smile to Elsie’s face. “Fraulein Klinkhammer told my mother that she believes baby will bring father around, this Heinrich, but, no, it did not. She discovered that he ran off. To America.”
Balancing Anna carefully, Gunther slowly lowered himself into the chair opposite Elsie, shifting carefully to find a comfortable position. Elsie couldn’t help but stare at him as he sat across from her. He was not wearing his spectacles, and she could see his fine blond eyelashes. Her eyes observed the smattering of freckles across his nose and cheeks, then travelled lower to his blond mustache and his full lips beneath.
A warmth began to radiate through her as she watched him, and she knew then what she had long suspected; she was indeed falling in love with him despite everything. She couldn’t help it. It was inconsequential what else he might say; it simply didn’t matter. Anyone this good and this compassionate, this intelligent and caring, who could hold a child as tenderly as he held a poem was to be desired beyond any, no matter what other horrors he had yet to tell. She could probably guess the rest of the story, anyway. Obviously, the young woman fled to America after her lover, and Gunther had then set off on a quest to find her, towing the little girl along. It was admirable to be sure—but as Elsie considered it more closely, did not make a lot of sense. There were several better alternatives that came to her mind in just a few short moments; surely, he must have thought of these, too . . .
“Fraulein Klinkhammer became very mutlos,” Gunther went on, oblivious to the delicate strands weaving at that moment into a cord of love within Elsie’s heart. “Sometimes this happens, my mother says. The woman does not want to know the baby . . . becomes depressed. My mother is thinking that the fraulein should be with her family, but we do not know how to find them, who they are. And Fraulein Klinkhammer will not say. My mother, she tries to help her, but we have other cares to be thinking of. And now baby, too. Many, many nights, baby cries, but Fraulein Klinkhammer does not rise. My mother cannot endure this, and also lodgers complain, so she picks up baby and feeds her each night. Many times in night. Then one day, Fraulein Klinkhammer disappears. She leaves baby and note to say she is going to find this Heinrich. She says she is going to America and that she will be coming back for baby someday when she can.”
Gunther stopped to softly rub the sleeping Anna’s back again. “That was four years ago. She did not even give her a name,” he said sadly, and for the first time he broke his gaze with Elsie and looked down.
“Who named her?” Elsie asked quietly.