Page 8

Chapter Eight

Hannelore Wolfe hadn’t spoken a word in her life, but she was a good listener.

She knew her mother was afraid.

The train ride had been long, but not as long as it had felt . She knew this because she had developed a system to keep herself from getting frustrated: she counted in her head. That way she knew how many seconds a task took. It was shocking how different her feeling of a task’s length was from the reality of it.

For instance: It took 1,340 seconds for her mother to put in her pin curls before coming to listen to the radio with Hannelore.

It took 180 seconds for a cup of tea to steep.

660 for Citizen to find a good place to lift his leg.

7,200 for Hannelore’s favorite sweater to dry on the line.

2,700 for social studies class to run its course (2,100 if one began counting after the Pledge of Allegiance and other morning announcements).

14,400 for her parents to return from embassy dinners.

Before the counting, she’d lost her temper far more often.

“We are getting close,” her father Friedrich murmured. “I better go speak with Lothar.”

Her mother, Sabine, in the seat opposite Hannelore, gripped squat Citizen in his knitted dog sweater. “I would rather you didn’t leave us.”

“It will be all right. Hannelore, will you be good for your mother?”

“Friedrich. Do not leave us.”

Hannelore counted in her head, of course, not out loud, and she did it even while knitting or drawing, or—and she was proud of this—while people were talking to her. She would nod, but part of her was thinking, Two thousand two hundred and twenty-four; two thousand two hundred and twenty-five…

28,870 seconds to take a train from Washington, DC, to West Virginia.

At supper, she’d learned they were moving. By bedtime, she’d packed a nice leather-sided suitcase and a less nice cardboard suitcase she did not want Mutti to throw away because the clasp looked like a slightly serious, slightly smiling face. She was ten years old and had moved many more times than that. Sometimes adults wondered aloud if Hannelore hated it. What did she hate? Bedtime. It took so many seconds to fall asleep: 4,000 on a good night, 5,500 if it was too hot to be comfortable, 7,400 if she couldn’t stop frightening thoughts.

That morning, journalists had lined the sidewalk outside the embassy. The air still smelled like smoke; all night, aides had burned every piece of paper, even party invitations. Flashbulbs exploded as the Wolfes hurried to the waiting car.

Now, hours later, as the train slowed, her mother muttered in German, “Why is there a crowd?”

“Because we are special,” her father answered. “People are always curious about special things.”

“Will they be violent?” Sabine asked Friedrich. She hadn’t meant for Hannelore to understand—she’d asked in a language that wasn’t German, English, or French—but Hannelore found languages easy to pick up. One just had to listen.

Hannelore looked to her father for his answer.

“Violently interested,” replied her father in English, knowing full well Hannelore had understood. Casting a jaunty smile at his daughter, he put on his hat at a rakish angle he would never assume outside on the street. Hannelore smiled, less because she was amused than because she knew she was supposed to be amused. “Just like the journalists were. It will be an adventure.”

But instead of journalists, uniformed officers stood several men deep. Behind them, dozens of necks craned for a better view as the train squealed to a halt.

Hannelore’s stomach twisted. In her imagination, the crowd sprang claws, tore the doors from the train, leapt upon her parents, destroyed her father’s jaunty hat—

Her father was gone. She hadn’t seen him go. Where had he gone?

“Once there was a girl named Hannelore,” Sabine said quickly. “Who traveled on a train to a magical land. It was deep in the woods and very beautiful, and she found a friend there no one else could see.”

Pulling out her sketchbook, Hannelore began to draw the train engine, as well as she could remember it. Her pen was packed away, so she just pressed the pad of her finger lightly against the paper. She had lost track of her count. It shouldn’t have mattered, because it had done its job of occupying her mind, but it seemed like a terrible shame to not know how long the journey had taken door to door.

A woman in the seat behind them spoke to Sabine in German. “You’d think they would have asked them not to congregate so near the train.”

Sabine’s tone was arch. “If any of us are harmed, it will be an international incident.”

“We are living an international incident. Do you know anything about where they are taking us? I have heard others were sent to a camp in Texas. Camps where—”

Sabine shot a glance at Hannelore. “My husband says it is an acceptable place, where we are to stay. He knows of it.”

“And then what?”

Sabine stood. “Ich weiss es nicht.” I do not know.

1,260 seconds later, Friedrich Wolfe reappeared, his cheeks bright pink with cold and knowledge. It was a mile to the hotel; they would send cars for the women and children. The men would walk ahead.

Hannelore leapt to her feet, seizing his arm.

“It will be nicer to wait,” her father told her. “It’s very cold.”

Hannelore could feel a fit building. All that counting for nothing!

Friedrich and Sabine looked at each other, and then Friedrich said, “The walk will do Citizen good.”

Outside, there was no proper station, just a covered waiting area with ornate metal benches. A cold mountain wind cut straight through to Hannelore’s bones, a shock after the close, cigarette-clouded train. The air here smelled like smoke, as it had at the embassy, though it was not the acrid scent of burning files, but the more elemental scent of woodsmoke. Rhythmic thumping punctuated the air; porters were heaving luggage from the train.

Hannelore traced the shape of the engine in the air; Sabine wordlessly pressed Hannelore’s hand down until she put it in her pocket.

“Stop!”

Close by, a knot of passengers faced down several uniformed guards. Hackles were raised. One of the guards even had his hand resting on his pistol at his waist.

“Wait,” Friedrich called. “They don’t understand what you are telling them. They are Hungarian.”

“I thought everyone on this train was a heinie,” a guard replied.

“I do not know everyone on it,” Friedrich said, “but I do know they are speaking Hungarian.”

“Great, Fritz. Do you speak Hungarian?”

Friedrich turned to his wife, who transformed before Hannelore’s eyes. Stepping forward, Sabine became a subtly smiling queen, her red-gold hair a crown. Behind her, Friedrich was an authoritative disciplinarian. And in turn, Hannelore felt herself becoming their perfect daughter, afraid of nothing, never giving in to a fit.

This was who the Wolfes were in public. Cultural Attaché Wolfe and his family.

For a school project, Hannelore once had to write, in carefully punctuated English, a description of her father’s occupation. My father, Friedrich Wolfe, helps other countries understand German culture by introducing them to German art, music, and athletics. His family helps him with his occupation. Together we demonstrate what a German family looks like.

Hannelore could not remember Germany, but she very much enjoyed being German.

“They are the husbands of the Hungarian legation’s maids,” Sabine told the guard, after conferencing briefly with the Hungarian men. “They were worried about being separated from their wives. I reassured them we were all going to the same place.”

There was a question mark at the end of the last sentence.

“Dankeschon,” said the guard. “Now scram.”

As soon as they were out of hearing range, Friedrich muttered to Hannelore, “Both his accent and his attitude were terrible.”

Hannelore couldn’t find a smile for him. She was only unafraid on the outside.

As they climbed past a stone sign saying The Avallon Hotel the second retrieved Citizen’s dragging leash. The third, a young man who moved with acrobatic grace despite carrying a tray laden with carafes and mugs, gave her a winsome grin.

“Coffee? Tea? Hot chocolate?” he asked her. When she didn’t reply, he switched into German at once: “Sprechen Sie Englisch? Nein? Mochten Sie einen Kaffee trinken? Tee? Eine heisse Schokolade?”

They did not seem to mind that Hannelore didn’t reply. They gave Citizen a biscuit and Hannelore a little paper sack tied shut with a thin, shiny ribbon. Inside was a Golden Delicious apple wrapped in a delicate cut-paper lace sleeve, a glass snail just big enough to fit in her fist, a pencil, and instructions for a scavenger hunt inside the hotel. While they wooed her in English and in German, the hotel grounds transformed. Live music began to play. An unseen bonfire crackled, the sound and smell unmistakable. Unexpectedly, she heard her mother’s tactful laugh. Somehow, the atmosphere of the train was slowly drifting away like smoke in the air.

More magic.

That was when she had the distinct feeling of being watched. Hannelore lifted her gaze to the top of the drive, where a hotel with many pitched rooftops was just visible. A woman stood there, slim and intense, three dachshunds at her feet. The woman was looking directly at Hannelore. She did not avert her gaze when she saw that Hannelore had noticed, either, but simply smiled in a small, knowing way. Like Sabine and the women Hannelore had encountered through her father’s work, the woman on the hill was intentionally dressed, with her overcoat and scarf and heeled Mary Janes, but her expression was somehow uncivilized. Wild. Hannelore had not known a woman could look like that. Something about the woman put Hannelore in mind of the damp moss she’d just touched. Water wasn’t just one thing; it could be rain, snow, ice, and rivers.

“ Hoss ,” called a voice, and the woman turned away. A word Hannelore hadn’t ever heard before for a woman unlike any she’d ever seen.

“Come on, now,” said a staff member, taking Hannelore’s hand. “Let’s go see the Avallon.”