Page 12 of The Banned Books of Berlin
Los Angeles, April 2024
‘Wow,’ Maddie said, gazing around. ‘Feels like we’ve entered a whole other world.’
‘Is it magic?’ Ben asked.
Eva laughed. ‘I like to think so.’
Her garden was a jungle in miniature, alive with flickering shadows and dappled sunlight. Broad-leaved palm trees swayed above their heads; below their feet, a brick path bordered by mosaics wound through beds of grasses, ferns and fleshy succulents. The hum of traffic was muted here, overlaid by the sound of water trickling over rocks to fall in a pool and the crystal notes of wind chimes hanging from branches. And everywhere they looked, there were extraordinary statues standing among the plants: mythical creatures with claws, scales and horns, fashioned from an array of discarded garbage. Tiny plastic animals, dolls’ heads, toy cars, flattened tin cans, ring pulls, tyre rims, bottle caps and a thousand other pieces of flotsam and jetsam had been arranged by colour and wired together to create large, friendly monsters.
Maddie was trying to think what the sculptures reminded her of when Ben said, ‘This is where the wild things are!’ and she realised, of course: his favourite picture book as a child. Sharon had even made him a wolf suit, which he wore until it fell apart.
‘That’s right,’ Eva said, delighted. ‘I love Maurice Sendak’s work. We share the same heritage: his parents were Jewish, too.’ Turning to Maddie, she added quietly, ‘He lost most of his family during the Holocaust when he was young, and I believe it affected him deeply. You can sense a dark undercurrent in so many of his drawings.’
Gramps gazed around. ‘Wonderful! Art from the contents of trash cans. But how did you collect all this? It must have taken years.’
‘Oh, I was quite the beachcomber in my younger days,’ Eva replied. ‘I work on a smaller scale now. There are some of my more recent pieces inside the house but I thought you might like to see the garden. Feel free to wander wherever you like.’
Maddie followed Ben down the path, stopping to admire a troll with fishing-net hair and beer-can pointed teeth hiding behind a bottle palm.
‘I love this place,’ Ben said, running his hand over its traffic-cone nose. ‘Can we come again?’
‘Well, we don’t want to bother Eva,’ Maddie replied. ‘I’d guess she’s pretty busy.’
They found a bench set against a wall studded with seashells at the end of the garden and sat for a while, sunshine warm on their skin, listening to a pair of doves cooing to each other. That was perhaps the best thing about being with family: you could enjoy each other’s company without the need to make conversation. ‘Ben, maybe some time you could visit me in Portland,’ Maddie said, as the idea occurred to her. ‘Would you like that?’
‘Yes,’ he replied immediately, though he looked anxious. ‘On a plane?’
‘Not necessarily,’ she replied. ‘You can go by train, though it takes a long time.’
Perhaps he could come back with her when she returned to Portland, and then her mom could fly out to pick him up at the end of the trip. Although would it be safe for him to spend time with her there, given the attention she was getting?
‘I’d like to show you where I live,’ she told Ben, pushing away the unwelcome thought. They could go for walks along the riverbank, see the sculptures in the Art Museum, take a picnic to the Japanese Gardens, and just hang out together. Spending time with Ben now made her realise how much she’d missed him: his openness and affection, the joy he took in small things. Every day since she’d been in LA, he’d made her a card with a picture on the front and some funny little message inside: ‘Wake up and smell the pineapple!’ or, ‘It’s a lovely day for a trip to the grocery store!’ Yet he hadn’t tried to make her laugh, as he usually loved to do: singing numbers from The Sound of Music in a falsetto voice or putting on Sharon’s coat and imitating her looking with increasing desperation for her car keys. He seemed to be running at half power.
Looking back, Maddie remembered the sense of liberation she had felt on leaving home to go to college. Sharon was a wonderful mother – almost too wonderful at times. Her whole being was wrapped up in her children: being the best advocate for Ben and making sure Maddie stayed on the right track. It would have been a relief if their mother could have eased off once in a while, though Maddie had never dared say so. Maybe Ben was beginning to feel stifled, too, trapped in a cage that was becoming too small for him.
‘Let’s go and see what Gramps and Eva are up to,’ she said, stretching out a hand to pull Ben up.
‘Do you think they’re kissing?’ he asked, screwing up his face.
Maddie laughed. ‘Well, you never know.’
Their grandfather was a huge hit among the elderly ladies in his neighbourhood but he didn’t seem to have any particular favourites; Maddie had certainly never seen him as animated as he was now with Eva. They fitted together perfectly, like two halves of a walnut in its shell.
Gramps and Eva were sitting at a table on the patio – not kissing but drinking tea, eating cake and talking ten to the dozen. ‘Come and have some Bienenstich ,’ Eva said. ‘Bee-sting cake. It’s a German speciality I made for you, to celebrate our heritage.’ Two circles of rich, buttery dough were sandwiched together with cream under a honey-glazed almond topping.
‘It’s weird but I’ve never really thought of myself as having German blood,’ Maddie said, accepting a slice and attacking it with her pastry fork. ‘Maybe we should take a trip to Berlin some time, Gramps.’ Instead of obsessing about death, she might have added. She said instead, ‘This cake tastes amazing, by the way.’
‘It’s so strange to think your parents and mine could have moved in the same circles,’ Gramps said to Eva. ‘There can’t have been many German émigrés heading to California in the 1930s. Our house was always full of artistic types – my mother seemed to collect them.’
‘My parents worked in the film industry too,’ Eva explained to Maddie and Ben. ‘Mom was a set designer and Dad a violinist who specialised in playing film scores. But you’re wrong, Robert: a flood of German writers and directors came to try their luck in Hollywood after Hitler came to power. Actors, too – Marlene Dietrich among them. My mother was in the audience at the opening of her film The Blue Angel . Marlene took a bow at the end for her standing ovation, then caught a taxi to the airport to leave Berlin for Hollywood. Five years later, my parents followed her.’
‘May I have another piece of cake?’ Ben interrupted, holding out his plate.
Maddie nudged him. ‘Say please.’
Eva laughed. ‘Of course, Ben. I’m glad you like it. Sorry to be boring. Who needs a history lesson?’
‘No, this is fascinating,’ Maddie assured her.
‘But the person who can tell you the most about those times is my grandson.’ Eva looked at her watch and tutted. ‘He should be here by now. Serves him right if we’ve eaten all the cake.’
Maddie tensed immediately. Even the thought of Daniel made her feel uncomfortable.
‘I love your wild things,’ Ben said. ‘Will you show me how you make them?’
‘Sure,’ Eva replied. ‘When we’ve finished tea, we can take a look around my studio. I hear you’re an artist yourself. Are you wearing one of your own designs?’
Ben beamed with pride, holding out his T-shirt and looking down at the picture as though he’d never seen it before: a sunflower with the caption, ‘I am your sunshine’. He was telling Eva about his paintings when Daniel walked through the patio doors at the back of the house, apologising profusely for being late. Maddie felt her hackles rise. Why did he have to come and spoil the afternoon? The very sight of him in chinos and shirt sleeves was annoying; he was so pleased with himself. He was good-looking in a dark, rugged kind of way, and he sure knew it.
‘One of my students kept me talking,’ he said with a shrug. ‘Not much of an excuse, I know.’
Maddie pasted a smile on her face for appearances’ sake. Daniel shook hands with Gramps, smiled at her in return and clapped Ben on the back as they were introduced.
‘Well, you nearly missed the Bienenstich ,’ Eva said, cutting him a generous slice.
‘My favourite. You must be honoured guests,’ he said, taking a bite and sending a dollop of cream squirting on to the table.
‘Careful!’ Maddie snatched up the envelope lying there that had narrowly escaped a splattering.
‘Oh, sorry,’ he said with his mouth full, not overly concerned. ‘What’s that?’
‘It’s my mother’s journal,’ Gramps said. ‘I’m decluttering my house, you see . Have you heard of Swedish death cleaning?’
Daniel swallowed quickly and threw up his hands. ‘No more death! Mr Cole, say that word again and you’ll have to put a dollar in the swear jar.’
Ben laughed with delight. ‘Pay up, Gramps!’
So arrogant, Maddie thought, choosing to ignore the fact she had felt exactly the same until ten seconds ago. Gramps only chuckled and told Daniel to call him Bob. ‘So, we found this notebook among my mother’s things,’ he went on, ‘and my German’s too rusty to make much sense of it. Eva’s going to see what she can do.’
‘May I take a look?’ Daniel asked.
‘Only if you use this,’ Maddie said, passing him a napkin.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said. ‘Actually, on second thought, I should probably wash my hands. Won’t be a minute.
‘Daniel’s in the movie business, too,’ Eva told them, after he’d left. ‘Well, he reviews films and teaches at USC. He wrote a thesis about the influence of German directors on the Hollywood movie business in the 1940s, so he knows more about the subject than I do.’
‘We should have brought those movie magazines,’ Gramps told Maddie, turning to Eva to add, ‘My mother had a collection of issues from the thirties and forties that we found when we were clearing out my apartment. I’m sure Daniel would have liked to see them. Oh well, another time.’
He and Eva were talking proudly about their grandchildren when Daniel returned and, with a glance at Maddie, picked up the envelope and drew out the leather-bound journal.
He laid it carefully on his lap. ‘Wow, this is precious. Kind of obvious, really, but have you made a photocopy?’
‘We haven’t, actually,’ Maddie confessed reluctantly. ‘That might be a good idea.’
‘I can copy it for you at work,’ he said, not lifting his eyes from the pages. ‘Looks like a diary but there seem to be stories here as well.’
‘My mother would never talk about her upbringing in Germany,’ Gramps said. ‘The writing might not be autobiographical, but any little clue about her early life would be so interesting.’
‘Sure,’ Daniel said politely.
Maddie had to fight an impulse to snatch the book out of his hands. OK, she was being ridiculous, but this was her great-grandmother – her Freya, with the impish smile and cloud of wavy hair – and she didn’t want a virtual stranger knowing anything about her.
‘And what about your father?’ Eva asked.
‘I never met him,’ Gramps replied. ‘He was killed in France, during the war, shortly before I was born. It happened the year before the Allied invasions in 1944, and I gather he was there on some sort of reconnaissance mission. My mother always said he was the love of her life, but she didn’t like to talk about him. I suppose it was too painful. He was German, too. I think he had friends in America who put him up when he first arrived, and then once he was settled, he sent for my mother. That’s about all I know.’
‘Did you miss him, growing up?’ Maddie asked, thinking about her own childhood.
Gramps shook his head. ‘Sometimes, maybe, when other boys’ dads came to the football game or took them camping, but not often. My mom made sure I felt secure and loved.’
‘And you don’t have any of his belongings?’ Eva asked. ‘No medals, or books, or letters?’
‘I have a photograph on the mantelpiece,’ Gramps said. ‘And I seem to remember a suitcase full of old clothes in the attic when I was clearing the house after my wife died, ready to move into the apartment. There might be something of his in there. Madeleine, maybe your mother has it?’
‘Gramps!’ Maddie exclaimed. ‘How could you be so careless? You, a history teacher!’
Eva clicked her tongue. ‘Robert, this decluttering is all very well, but you must be careful not to throw too much away. I have several treasures that my parents brought with them from Germany and they mean more to me than anything else in the house. Come and see.’
They walked through the long, low bungalow, crammed with as many interesting things to see as the garden: flowering vines drawn around doorways and climbing up walls; a glass table top resting on a massive section of tree trunk, its branches twisted and writhing; a seagull made out of discarded plastic – spoons and forks, coat hangers, a hairbrush – hanging in front of a porthole window; a painted sky-blue ceiling, dotted with fluffy white clouds. Eva’s latest pieces were displayed in a light-filled studio at the side of the house: children’s faces, composed of a collage of old photographs, film negatives, strips of contact sheets, even pieces of X-rays. Maddie couldn’t stop looking at them, fascinated by the way so many tiny, ghostly images in black and white formed recognisable features when seen from a distance.
Ben was entranced, too. Daniel showed him how to make the seagull’s wings flap by pulling a cord beneath it, and pointed out any delights he might have missed: a trompe l’?uil mousehole in the baseboard with a pair of beady eyes peering out; a real-life ginger cat asleep in a laundry basket. To be fair to the guy, Maddie had to admit, he was great with her brother – which simply meant treating him like a normal human being, rather than ignoring him completely or talking to him in a bright, false voice with the volume turned up. Any of her friends who’d failed the Ben test had been crossed off the list immediately.
Eva led them to a glass-fronted cabinet in a corner of the living room, its shelves crammed with objects. ‘Pick up anything that interests you,’ she said, opening the door. ‘These belongings come alive when they’re touched. When I hold them, it feels as though my parents are speaking to me – and their parents, too.’
Maddie was content merely to look at first, taking in every detail of the display. Embroidered linen tablecloths and place mats were draped behind photograph albums, a stained recipe book, a gleaming silver cup engraved with lettering from the Hebrew alphabet, while a doll with a vacant china face, a stuffed calico dog and a teddy bear with a red bow tie sat around a miniature table laid with teacups the size of thimbles. Ben chose a misshapen leather football and tossed it high in the air.
‘You’d better take that outside,’ Maddie warned, but Eva told them not to worry.
‘This is one of the most precious things,’ she said, selecting a small book and flicking open its pages, which were crammed with dense handwriting. ‘These are the addresses of my parents’ friends and neighbours in the Jewish quarter of Berlin.’ She sighed. ‘The saddest book in the world, my father used to say. Just a handful of these people survived the war and nearly all their houses were bombed to smithereens. A whole community, destroyed in the blink of an eye. You can visit Berlin, Maddie, but I doubt you’ll find your great-grandmother there. The world she grew up in has gone; it only exists in the stories handed down through generations.’ She smoothed her thumb over the worn leather cover before putting the book back in place. ‘My parents used to talk about the old days constantly. They might have escaped the Nazis but they were haunted by memories of those left behind.’
‘And my mother never mentioned Germany,’ Gramps told her. ‘Strange, isn’t it? I can’t recall her seeking out any German friends and she had no desire to go back there after the war was over. Of course, she wasn’t Jewish, and she was on her own throughout my childhood, but all the same …’
‘Sounds like a mystery for you to investigate,’ Daniel said to Maddie.
‘How do you mean?’ she asked, instantly defensive.
‘Well, you’re a journalist, aren’t you?’ he replied. ‘Look, I’m not stalking you, but I’ve done some digging and I was right: we were at college together. There’s proof!’ He took out his phone and scrolled through some photos before selecting one. ‘You were in the film society too. Remember this screening?’
‘Vaguely,’ Maddie said, squinting at the picture. There she was, in the middle of a group of five people standing in front of a movie poster, wearing her favourite red plaid shirt (she’d scarcely taken that thing off the whole of her freshman year – where was it now?) with her arms folded and her hair in a high ponytail, looking very sure of herself. She hadn’t worried about voicing her opinions then; she was always sounding off about something or other. The other members of the film-society committee had been equally opinionated, as far as she could recall. It was a wonder they’d ever agreed on a single film worth watching. She had a dim memory of one person always turning up halfway through their meetings; perhaps that was Daniel.
‘But where are you?’ she asked him.
He came so close to peer over her shoulder that she could smell his cologne; she had to steel herself not to flinch. ‘At the back. The one with the beard.’
‘Oh, yes,’ she said, ‘of course. Guess I have an excuse for not recognising you. I left the film society after a couple of terms, anyway.’
‘So once I had your name, I looked you up online,’ Daniel went on. ‘It’s interesting to see what became of us all.’
Maddie passed him back the phone. ‘And now you’re teaching at USC.’
He smiled. ‘Yeah, I haven’t gone far. I write film reviews, too.’
‘Good for you,’ she said, more coldly than she’d intended. He’d found her on the internet so he’d know the things people were saying about her, and she hated that.
‘And you’ve never tried to find your father’s family?’ Eva was asking Gramps. ‘You can trace virtually anybody these days, you know. All you need is a name and a date of birth. I subscribe to a family history website so I could help you track them down.’
‘I couldn’t see the point,’ he replied. ‘They might turn out to be awful and then I’d be stuck with them.’
She laughed. ‘Not necessarily. Anyway, look on the bright side: these people might be lovely. And even if they’re not, they can probably tell you something about your father. Aren’t you curious?’
Gramps considered the matter. ‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘Now you come to mention it, I am.’