Page 5 of Hell to Pay

“Vaguely,” I said. “It was the headquarters of theWehrmachtduring my childhood.The Army.”

“Oh, geez,” Alix said. “I’m sorry. I should have asked. This whole place is a land mine.”

I waved a hand and had to laugh. “It has much more history than that. And there were many decent men in theWehrmacht.My father, for one.”

“Really?” Alix asked. “I didn’t …”

“I’ll tell you later,” I said, because a bellman was loading our mountain of luggage onto yet another cart. “Let’s go inside and see what a bombed-out palace looks like, once it becomes a hotel.”

What it looked like was a hotel, and not even one with a grand lobby. Rather pedestrian, to me. They really should have tried harder.

Alix, of course, started out by chanting, while Sebastian was handing over his credit card, “I’m not looking. I’m not looking. I’m telling myself that you play in the NFL and want to throw away stupid money on your fiancée and her grandmother.”

“For somebody who’s not looking,” Sebastian said, “you sure are noisy about it.”

“Fine,” she said. “So is it the same, Oma? Do you recognize it?”

“Not much,” I said. “It’s quite different.”

“Do you know Dresden, Madam?” the middle-aged desk clerk asked politely. He wore glasses and was balding, andlooked very much like a butler, tall and full of deference. I wondered if the hotel had selected him for that quality.

“I lived here as a child,” I said. “Is Dresden also your home?”

“Yes,” he said. “All my life. Things are very different, of course, since Germany was reunited.”

“Thirty-five years ago,” I said, for Ben’s benefit. “The hotels are grander now, no?”

He smiled. “Indeed. Is this your first visit home?”

Home.There was that word again. He must have registered something on my face, because his smile faded and he said, “I’ve misspoken. Excuse me.”

“She’s not Jewish, or whatever you’re thinking,” Alix said. “My grandmother. But she did leave Dresden after the bombing.”

“Ah,” the desk clerk said. “Yes. You will find it odd, how so much that was destroyed has been rebuilt to look the same. My mother and father found it so, but they were proud, too, to have Dresden become a Baroque jewel-box once more. My father always said it was the most beautiful city in Germany.”

“And your mother?” I asked. It was only polite.

“She was from Prague and would never admit the comparison,” he said, “although she did say that Dresden feels less like God has his eye on you every moment, and is hence more comfortable. She had the true Czech humor. But you have no doubt seen Prague and all its churches.”

“Not that I remember,” I said. “I haven’t been in Europe since I left, and before that, of course, there was the war.”

“We will have to welcome you properly, then.” He looked at his screen, probably because of something in my face. “I have three rooms listed here. One palace view room, one junior suite next door, and the Queen Suite.”

“The junior suite is us,” Alix said, “the palace view room is Ben here, and the Queen Suite is my grandmother.”

“Frau Stark,” I said, before Alix could have us all on a first-name basis, and probably sayingdualso, so ready to become familiar. “But you should take the larger suite, Alix. There are two of you and only one of me. There was no need for this.”

“Of course there was,” Alix said. “Of course thereis.This is your trip. And we need a table to sit around for our councils of war, so you see? We needed this suite. This way, we can come to you.”

“The Queen Suite is very fine,” the clerk said. “In fact, not named for a queen, but for the Countess Cosel.”

I laughed. Ill-mannered of me, but it took me by surprise. “Excuse me,” I said at the desk clerk’s evident confusion. “The Countess Cosel,” I told the others, “was Augustus II’s favorite mistress. Augustus the Strong, that was, who built this palace for her. He also elevated theResidenzschlossto its full grandeur, and planned the building of theFrauenkirche,the Lutheran church, and only after that was done, theHofkirche—the Catholic church that is attached to theResidenzschloss.The rulers were Catholic, you see, and the populace Lutheran. Augustus II was a skilled politician.”

“Wait, he was Catholic and everybody else wasn’t?” Ben asked. “Huh? I thought religion was, like, a big deal in the olden days.”

“He wanted to be King of Poland as well as Saxony,” I said. “So Catholicism was necessary. As I said—a skilled politician, in the fashion of 1700, and most ambitious. He did become King of Poland. For a while.”

“Did they cut off his head too?” Ben asked.