To Run With the Swift, Page 2

  “But where are we going?”

  “I have a sister who lives in Zurich. She knows of our family’s debt to your husband, and she will take you in. As you know, Switzerland is a neutral country, and you will be safe there while other arrangements are made.”

  She peered up into his face. “When shall we be able to return to our home?”

  He looked away. How much should he say? How much did she have a right to know? When he turned back, his expression was very grave. “I cannot say much, Frau Decker, because what I know comes from classified documents that I am not at liberty to discuss. But—” He took a quick breath. “But it may be that you may never return to Munich.” Another quick breath, and he averted his eyes. “You may never be able to return to Germany.”

  Schreiber Home, Zurich, Switzerland

  May 8, 1945

  Frau Elizabette Decker looked at the haughty woman who stood before her. “A scullery maid?” She was deeply shocked.

  Katarina Hoffman Schreiber’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Beneath your station, is it?”

  Gisela tugged on her mother’s skirt. “What’s a skully maid, Mama?”

  Her mother barely heard her. Her chest was rising and falling as her breath came in short, angry bursts. Finally, her head came up, and the tired eyes flashed fire. “I come from a house where we had more household servants than your husband employs in his petty little manufacturing shop. And you would make me a scullery maid?”

  “And where is your great house now?” Katarina shot back. “And your servants? Tell me, Frau Decker. Where are they now?”

  “Mama,” Gisela cried in alarm, “what is a skully maid?”

  Lips pressed into a tight line, Katarina looked down at the little girl. “The scullery is a small room behind the kitchen in large manor homes or villas. It is the room used for washing dishes, scrubbing pots and pans, laundering the servants’ uniforms”— she shot a look at the child’s mother—“and other of the most menial duties.”

  Elizabette looked down at her daughter. “A scullery maid is the lowest of all the household servants. And her salary is a pittance.” She turned back to face their hostess. “It is an insult, that’s what it is. I am the wife of a very important man who—”

  Katarina sneered in disgust. “You are the wife of a high-ranking Nazi official who is likely to be charged with war crimes. You are on the run so that you will not be arrested and made to pay for what the Nazis have done to our country. So don’t you stick your nose in the air and sniff at me like I am some piece of scum beneath your feet. My husband already thinks I am a fool for helping you.”

  She started to turn away, then whirled back. She took two steps to the writing desk to her left and picked up a thick manila envelope. Thrusting it at Elizabette, she leaned in close, jaw clenched and eyes cold with fury. “This arrived this morning from my brother. It is all there—train tickets to Marseille, passage for two on a tramp steamer that will work its way eventually to Liverpool.”

  She looked away. “He has done all this at terrible risk to himself and the rest of our family. You have your travel documents, passports, everything you need. And he left me sufficient money to see you to England. Do you know how tempting it is to throw you and your haughty pride out on the streets and keep the money for my own family? But I will not. We may not be one of the ‘noble families of Germany’”— the last was spoken with open sarcasm and contempt—“but in our family we believe in honor and integrity. So you will have your new life. You will go where no one will know who you are or what your husband has done.”

  “My husband has served the Third Reich faithfully. He will be vindicated.”

  “No,” Katarina yelled, “he will be hanged.” And then the tears came. “As will my brother.”

  That finally punched through Elizabette’s outrage and anger. “Your brother? Do you mean Captain Hoffman? But—”

  Cheeks stained with tears, Katarina’s head dropped. “He was arrested yesterday. Someone saw him out of uniform when he went to help you. They reported him, and an investigation began. When they learned that he had forged documents and purchased train and steamer tickets, they assumed it was for him. He has been charged with desertion.”

  Elizabette Decker fell back a step, one hand flying up to her mouth. “No.”

  “Yes,” she hissed. “And now you stand here quivering in anger because of your offended pride? Demanding some kind of privileged position? Get out of my sight. If I had not given my word to Manfred, I would send you back to Munich and let you find out for yourself that there are much worse things than being a scullery maid.”

  University of Manchester, Manchester, England

  Friday, June 16, 1967

  Summa cum laude: A title given only to those who achieve perfect grades in all classes. In Latin meaning, “with highest praise.”

  She looked at the diploma, running her fingers lightly across the lettering, smelling the richness of the leather cover.

  University of Manchester

  Has conferred upon

  Gisela Elizabette Decker

  Who having demonstrated ability by original research

  In the Field of Economics

  the degree of

  Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Economics

  with all the rights and privileges thereto pertaining

  Issued by the Board of Regents upon recommendation of the faculty

  June 16, 1967.

  It was signed by the Provost and President and had the university’s seal affixed to the bottom. “Not bad for the daughter of a scullery maid,” she murmured bitterly. Then, lifting the skirts of her graduation robes, she started for the door. As she walked through the crowds, she had never felt more alone. They were gathered in clusters—graduates and their families, graduates and their friends, graduates and other graduates. Clusters was not a word that described her now, nor had it ever been. She had done this on her own, with only her mother to encourage her.

  But didn’t that define her life? Their lives? From the time they had fled Germany? She shook it off angrily. She had a doctorate in economics. She had earned it through the sheer strength of her own will. Who cared about being a cluster? She was proud that she stood alone. Proud of what she had accomplished. And let the rest of the world rot in hell if that was how they were.

  Just as she was about to leave the hall, someone called her name. She turned to see an older man, nearly bald but with a white, neatly trimmed beard. He was waving to her and making his way through the crowd toward her.

  She waved and stepped back, pasting on the bright smile again. He joined her, extending his hand. “Hello, Gisela.”

  “Dr. Williamson, hello.”

  “Congratulations! Well done.”

  “Thank you. You are responsible for much of it.” And she meant it. Here was an exception. A friend. A mentor. A man instrumental in helping her achieve this day.

  “I think not. I was just the midwife. You are, without question, the finest student it has ever been my privilege to mentor. It was a joy.”

  “And for me. You were much more than a midwife. You do great honor to the title of teacher and educator.” She really meant it. Of all her professors, Dr. Williamson was the one she admired the most because he had had the greatest impact upon her. She had chosen him as the chairman of her doctoral committee, and he had championed her throughout her studies.

  “Kind of you to say it. Thank you.” He hesitated a moment, then, “Are you off so quickly? Not going to join us for some bubbly out in the commons?”

  She looked away. “No. I have to ... I ... I can’t.”

  “Ah,” he said, his face falling, “I heard about your mother. How is she?”

  “Still in hospital. Not well. Not well at all. And very disappointed that the doctors would not approve her coming to graduation today.” It was a lie, but she had
told it enough times that it came easily to her lips.

  “Well, tell her for me that she has every right to be proud of her daughter.” He glanced down at the diploma. “At least she will have that to look at.”

  “Yes. She made me promise to come there straightaway.”

  “Well, tell her what I said.”

  “I shall.”

  He turned and started away, then spun back around. “Which reminds me. I just heard a rumor about you.” He reached down and took her left hand, lifting it up to show the diamond ring on the third finger. “Well, well. So that dashing young man that I’ve seen walking you around campus finally came to his senses?”

  She blushed slightly as she smiled. “Yes, with a little persuasion. We are to be married next spring.”

  “Then double congratulations. I hear he is from a prominent banking family in Switzerland.”

  “Yes. His name is Bernhardt von Dietz, from Bern.”

  “From Von Dietz Global Financial Enterprises?” He was clearly impressed.

  “Yes. He is a great-grandson of the founder.”

  “Very good, my dear.” There was a soft chuckle. “How wise of them to bring an economist of your stature into the business.”

  She laughed. “That’s what I keep telling them.”

  Gisela sat across from her mother in the tiny sitting room of the cottage. Her mother had her diploma on her lap, reading every word again. She looked up, and Gisela was not surprised to see tears streaking her cheeks. “I’m so proud of you, Gisela,” she whispered.

  “I know, Mama. But your name should be there with mine.”

  “So you forgive me for all those nights I made you study instead of going out to play?”

  “I do now,” she laughed. “I didn’t then.”

  “I am so proud of you,” she whispered. “So proud.”

  “I know, Mama.” She stood. “Would you like some more tea? Another crumpet?”

  “Yes, please.”

  Moving to the table, Gisela refilled both of their cups from the flowered teapot that had been Gisela’s present to her mother on her forty-sixth birthday earlier in the year. It had meant skipping lunch for two weeks, but now it was her mother’s most prized possession. She picked up another crumpet—a round, spongy griddle cake smeared with butter—and served her. “Mama, won’t you please come with me to Switzerland? Just for a few days.”

  Panic instantly darkened her mother’s eyes. “No, but thank you for asking, my dear.”

  No surprise there. The surprise would have been if she had said yes. She rarely left the village, let alone the country.

  Several years ago, when Gisela was doing her master’s degree, she had sought out one of the professors at the University of Manchester Medical School. He was in the department of psychiatric medicine. Telling him only that it was a woman she knew, she described her mother’s fear of leaving the village, her reluctance to attend social functions, how her life was limited to the tiny circle of her cottage in the village and the manor house in which she now served as housekeeper.

  Yet in Hawkings House, the great manor house whose occupants owned the village as part of their thousands of acres of holdings, she was a woman of confidence, assertiveness, and action. In the English system of household servants, the housekeeper was in charge of all female servants. Along with the butler, she ran the entire household, seeing to it that the family’s needs were met with impeccable exactness. Gisela had watched her bark orders at the female staff like a drill sergeant. But when she returned to her little cottage, she underwent a complete change.

  The professor had been so fascinated with Gisela’s account that he spent over an hour with her, probing for more details, especially about this woman’s earlier life. Gisela told him that she was the only child of an upper-middle-class family who took great pride in the fact that they descended from German nobility. At seventeen, she had entered into an arranged marriage with the oldest son of a wealthy and prominent family in Munich thirteen years her senior. It had been a good marriage. He loved her and doted on her. She adored him—even worshiped him. At eighteen, just before Hitler invaded Poland, she gave birth to a son. Just over a year later, she had a little girl. Gisela, of course, gave no hint that she was that little girl. Careful not to share details that might reveal something, Gisela told him the rest of the story.

  When Gisela had finished her narrative, the psychiatrist had his diagnosis, using the technical terms for her mother’s condition. She was paranoid. She was obsessive-compulsive. She had agoraphobia—a panic disorder stemming from the feeling that one cannot escape from one’s current situation. This was often triggered by being around or among groups of strangers. It was a wonder she functioned at all, the psychiatrist concluded. Gisela had lowered her head, fighting back tears. “She is the most remarkable woman I have ever known.”

  Now, as she set the tea in front of her mother, she bent down and kissed her on the top of her head. Her hair was nearly white now, even though she was not yet fifty. The story of her life was written deeply into her face. “I love you, Mum,” she whispered.

  Her mother looked up and smiled. “I know.”

  As they sat together, quietly sipping their tea, Gisela Decker let her mind go back to that first day they had arrived at the great Hawkings House estate. She had been dazed by what lay before them. It was a vast estate of thousands of acres with a nearby village totally owned by the Bremley family. Only years later did Gisela learn that the Bremleys were also an aristocratic family from southern Germany.

  In the early 1930s, as the Nazis came to power, Lord Bremley (changed from Bremmer) had seen where Adolf Hitler’s meteoric rise was taking Germany. The family emigrated, changed their names, hired tutors to help them erase their German accent, and pledged their complete loyalty to England and the United Kingdom. By the time war broke out eight or nine years later, the people round about their great country estate no longer considered them as German and accepted them fully. They were good landlords to their tenants and treated their household servants firmly but fairly. They also insisted that the children of the servants attend school in the village at no charge to their parents.

  Within a year, Gisela was fluent in English, speaking it with a perfect Lancashire drawl. She learned to emulate every little mannerism of her friends until she was far more British than German. And she excelled in school. Oh yes, how she excelled in school.

  Somewhere during that time, they learned that her father, still held in a POW camp in West Germany, had been charged with war crimes. Eventually he was convicted and hanged. On that day, her mother changed in terrible ways. From that day on, Elizabette never again spoke of returning to Germany. She never even spoke of her life there. It was as if someone had taken those years from her memory.

  “Liesel?”

  Gisela came awake with a start. She half sat up in her bed, momentarily confused. This was not her flat in Manchester. A soft knock sounded again. “Liesel, it’s time to get up. Your flight leaves in a few hours.”

  “Yes, Mama,” she called, shaking her head to sweep out the cobwebs. “I’m coming.”

  When she came into the kitchen, her mother was peeling her a boiled egg. Her toast was on the plate, the orange marmalade placed just above it. Just as it was every time Gisela returned home. Across from her, her mother’s egg was already shelled and waiting. Bernhardt kidded Gisela about not knowing how to crack and peel an egg because her mother always did it for her. It was an exaggeration, but not without some truth.

  “Good morning, Mama.”

  “Good morning, Liesel!”

  Gisela sat down, reaching across the small table to hold her mother’s hand for a moment. She smiled at this woman whom she loved so much. “Do you know how long it has been since you called me Liesel? Why now?”

  Elizabette’s eyes finally focused. “I never liked the name Gisela,�
�� she said. “I wish our Captain Hoffman had asked me what name I wanted for you instead of choosing one himself.”

  “Mama, I have not been Liesel for a very long time.” Actually, hearing herself called Liesel left her feeling uneasy.

  Her mother leaned in closer, and, to Gisela’s surprise, she looked a little impish. That was something she didn’t see very often. “I don’t like it because it reminds me of geese. Gisela. Geese. I don’t like it one bit.”

  The woman who had just received a doctorate in economics summa cum laude laughed aloud. “You never told me that before.”

  There was a tiny smile around the corners of her mother’s mouth. “I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.” Then she was instantly sad. “That is the one thing I truly regret.”

  “What?”

  “That we abandoned our family name. As if we were ashamed of it.”

  “But, Mama, we had no choice. It was the only way—”

  “I know, I know, Gisela.” Then her mouth set. “But at least we did not totally turn our back on our heritage. I don’t think I could bear it if we had English first names, too.”

  “Like Mary Alice. Or Mary Amelia. Or Mary Charlotte. Why is it that every girl in England is named Mary?”

  That actually won her a smile. “Or Lady Mary Kathleen Bremley.”

  Gisela took a bite of toast and washed it down with coffee. “But England has been good to us, eh, Mama?”

  She nodded, but her eyes were somewhere else. She did that more and more now—just kind of retreated into herself and pushed the world aside. But then she shook it off. “And why did your Bernie man not attend your graduation? Now that you’ve proven that you’re smarter than he is, he’s not going to dump you, is he?”

  Gisela hooted. “‘Dump’ me? I think, dear Mama, that you have been watching too many American soap operas on the telly. But, no, he did not dump me. Bernhardt is in New York. The bank is making a major acquisition. He offered to postpone the meeting so he could be here yesterday, but I wouldn’t hear of it. It’s just a ceremony, Mama. He’ll be back in Bern day after tomorrow. And then we’ll both come and see you.”