That which remains, p.1
That Which Remains, page 1
That Which Remains
C. F. Yetmen
That Which Remains. Copyright © 2021 by C.F. Yetmen
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system without express permission in writing from the publisher.
Austin, Texas
Text set in Electra
Book design by Adam Fortner
Cover by David Provolo
Author photo by Samantha Eisenmenger
ISBN eBook: 978-0-9988890-3-0
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, institutions, organizations, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
For my family
“Some people believe it is holding on
that makes us strong, but sometimes
it is letting go that strengthens us.”
Hermann Hesse
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Epilogue
Afterword
Join C.F. Yetmen’s Mailing List
Also by C. F. Yetmen
About the Author
One
Wiesbaden, Germany, February 1946
People began lining up outside the museum’s entry doors almost as soon as the sun came up, huddled against the cold, the warm breath of their excited chatter floating in a foggy cloud above their heads—women and children, mostly, and some older men. The line threaded its way through the parked Army jeeps and trucks and between the white-helmeted MPs who stood sentry. No one expected such a big showing on the first day of the exhibition. Anna was glad she had made sure the entrance to the Collecting Point was locked behind her when she had come in early that morning. Letting throngs of civilians into the place where the Americans were keeping millions of dollars’ worth of homeless art, not to mention the brilliant idea of showing their inventory off to the public, seemed reckless, but then lots of things the Americans did seemed that way. Amis were like that.
“Anna, what are you doing here? I thought I gave you time off to get ready for the funeral.” Captain Cooper appeared at her side. “That was an order, in case you didn’t know. You should be with your family. I’ve got things under control here.”
“I’d rather be here,” Anna replied. “Anyway, the funeral isn’t until three o’clock. I asked for the last slot of the day so it wouldn’t be so cold.”
They surveyed the scene outside the door below, standing side by side at the large window in the new office they shared. They had moved a few weeks earlier from the closet-sized room to a large, open space with high ceilings and an enormous window that overlooked the Wilhelmstrasse. The new room had the added benefit of a working radiator, making it the warmest place in the building, which wasn’t saying much, but at least her teeth didn’t chatter all day. Anna loved the large window the most; it lifted her above the harsh realities of the streets below, their ruins and scarcity and cold. From here, the city’s rooftops spread out before her. To the west, the twin spires of St. Bonifatius with their rickety shell of scaffolding bathed in the rising sunlight. Beyond that, the heavily bombed sector with its torn-off roofs and exposed innards sat like rotten teeth in an otherwise pretty smile. And straight ahead and a little to the left was the roof of the apartment building in the Adolfsallee. Madeleine’s apartment, the place Anna and Amalia and Oskar called home.
But Madeleine would be laid to rest today in the cold ground of the old cemetery, leaving Anna all alone—no husband, no parents, and now no Madeleine. It would be just Anna and the children, who relied completely on her.
The memory of her last days with Madeleine tugged at her—the fall down the stairs, the lying unattended for hours in the freezing stairwell, the concussion followed by pneumonia, then the sudden goodbye. Madeleine was so frail and small that she seemed to disappear into the sheets on the hospital bed. All her energy and spark departed long before her body gave way, as if she had made an early exit on her own terms. There had been no bedside vigil, no meaningful last words. Just a fading away. A merciful death, Anna kept telling herself.
Cooper had helped pull strings with the local authority and the church to get Madeleine a spot in the lovely south cemetery after Anna had mentioned how beautiful it was. “So you have a nice place to visit with her,” he had said. The cemetery was already almost at capacity, and it was lucky that the ground had thawed enough to dig a grave, which meant Madeleine could rest in the soil of the city she loved. But she would be all alone; her beloved son was buried at the Somme where he fell in the Great War and Otto, her husband, had been cremated after his death during the war when funerals became too frequent and too costly. Madeleine had spread his ashes in the Rhine, which was against the rules, but rules never bothered Madeleine much. At least she had a nice little spot in the sunshine. In the spring, Anna would plant flowers if she could get her hands on some seeds. For now, she braced herself for the final goodbye.
“Okay if I come, too?” Cooper asked, looking straight ahead. “I’d really like to be there.”
Captain Cooper had been put in charge of mounting the public exhibition of some of the Collecting Point’s most impressive art holdings, returning the building to its original purpose as a museum, at least in part. Paintings by old masters, sculptures, and antiquities were on display in the freshly painted and cleaned galleries on the ground floor while the work of the Monuments Men continued in the offices and workshops and store rooms. The exhibition had been the idea of some higher-ups who thought the Monuments Men unit—Monuments Fine Arts and Archives in official military parlance—needed public support after they had been forced to ship some two hundred paintings to the U.S. for “safekeeping.” Now they were trying to repair their image and convince the German people that they were not looting their art the way the Nazis had looted everyone else’s. The whole thing had driven Cooper mad. The fussiness of painting the walls and creating displays detracted from the work he loved, which was to catch the bad guys and return stolen art to its rightful owners. But now opening day had arrived, and by the looks of the crowds at the door, it was going to be a big success.
Anna snapped out of her thoughts. “Yes, of course, I want you to come. But can you get away from here?”
“They won’t miss me once the floodgates are open. I’m leaving the place in the capable hands of the infantry boys and Frau Zanger, who is officially unarmed but just as deadly.”
Agnes Zanger had terrorized the American officers as well as the German staff since her first day at the Collecting Point, which had only been six weeks ago at the beginning of January. But felt like an eternity. She had been a curator at the Nationalgalerie in Berlin, whose treasure now resided at the Monuments Men Collecting Point in Wiesbaden, but which she seemed to consider her personal purview. “My painted queen” she called the bust of Nefertiti, their most high-profile holding, which enraged Cooper every time he heard it. Anna pressed her lips together to hide her smile as she thought about it.
Queen Nefertiti was now encased in a custom-built vitrine that was cordoned off and guarded by two young men from the 28th infantry division, newly assigned to the Central Collecting Point. Thousands of other pieces—paintings, sculptures—were still under lock and key, and Anna’s job lately had been to deal with the steady stream of claimants that appeared on the CCP threshold on a daily basis with stories of loss, theft, betrayal, and intrigue. The Monuments Men had become a popular target for scammers and fraudsters, some small time, others legitimate Nazi criminals, all wanting to get their hands on some of the treasure the Americans guarded. Anna had gotten so good at spotting fakers that she made a game out of their interviews. Maybe it was cruel, but they were attempting to defraud the U.S. military government, not to mention whomever the painting had been stolen from in the first place. The victim was almost always a Jew and the stories she heard revealed more horror than she could ever have imagined. She couldn’t grapple with how she lived through Nazi rule without knowing what so many of her fellow Germans had suffered.
“You survived the war, you’ll survive Agnes Zanger,” Anna said, patting Cooper’s arm.
As if on cue, a woman’s voice bellowed up the atrium from the ground floor. Cooper exhaled.
“Speak of the devil. Frau A-to-Z on the premises.” He referred to Frau Zanger by referencing her initials because the woman’s signature, which had appeared on so many official documents since her arrival, emphasized the A and Z with large strokes. It was as if she was claiming the entire alphabet as her own domain. “Lord deliver us.” He clasped his hands in supplication and rolled his eyes.
“What’s she yelling about now?” Anna asked.
“Never you mind. I’ll take care of her. I think you should go be with your kiddos and prepare yourself for this afternoon.” He took her hand and leaned his face toward hers. “Anna. It’s okay to be sad. Take all the time you need.”
He’
“Suit yourself.” Cooper lingered, his head close to hers and they both looked down, averting their eyes from the shrinking space between them. The fraternization laws had gone the way of the rest of Germany, blown to smithereens by the near total absence of young German men and the robust tastes of the plentiful American ones. Still, Anna hated to be the subject of gossip and wanted to make a good impression at her job, which she loved. She was the breadwinner of her little family now, and it mattered that she take her work seriously. But the attraction to Cooper was irresistible and, to make things worse, mutual. It made things very complicated.
Cooper took the moment to stroke her hair with one finger, tucking an escaped strand behind her ear. “I’ll be downstairs,” he said. “Go home at lunchtime. Your kids need you, too.”
Downstairs, Frau A-to-Z shouted again. Cooper looked at his watch. “I guess it’s showtime.” He squeezed her shoulder and headed to the stairs, the sounds of his footsteps merging with the rising commotion. Anna pressed her cheek against the cold window pane and closed her eyes. The thought of burying Madeleine, her mother’s best friend, who had been her second mother her entire life was almost too much to bear. First, her mother and her father, now Madeleine.
Downstairs, the MPs moved the growing crowd into an orderly line that snaked along the side of the building, a ribbon of winter coats and felted hats. The sun was up now, and the day that she would bury Madeleine was here. Time was pulling Anna along with it, away from what had been and toward something unknown and terrifying. In the foyer, the heavy wooden door of the museum creaked open and the line of people began to crawl slowly into the building—a centipede wearing a hundred wool coats.
* * *
Oskar and Amalia sat on the sofa, fully dressed in their meager best clothes, with their straight backs and expectant eyes. Amalia wore one of Madeleine’s hats, and Oskar had put on a tie he must have found in Madeleine’s husband’s things. They looked like they had dressed each other. There was a strange smell in the air, and the living room curtains were pulled back to let in the bright winter sun as well as the icy draft. Anna narrowed her eyes and surveyed the room. The bed had been made properly for once. The mismatched odds and ends—the rickety nightstand, the tiny table with two chairs and a stool, the dresser with the splintered corner—had been neatly organized and surfaces wiped clean. The tattered old place almost sparkled.
“What are you two up to?” Anna asked.
Amalia broke into a grin. “Mama, we cleaned the house for you. We used soap and everything. And Oskar washed the towels.”
That was the smell. The house was clean. “You monkeys are amazing. This place has never looked so good. Did you use soap on the towels, too, Oskar?” Anna teased the boy who was not known for his fondness for soap.
“I certainly did,” he replied, puffing up. “They are all hanging up to dry in the cellar.”
Anna sank onto the sofa between them and slapped their knees with each hand. “Aren’t you full of surprises? You got yourselves all dressed, too. What has gotten into you?”
“We wanted to cheer you up,” Amalia said.
Anna caught a glimpse of her daughter’s hair under the hat. Instead of the usual two braids, there was only one, but not in the middle of her back where a single braid usually goes. This one was on the side. Amalia saw her mother’s gaze focused on her head and froze. Anna reached for the hat and lifted it off the girl’s head. One side of Amalia’s hair was pulled into her usual braid, but the other side was noticeably shorter. Anna looked between the two children. Oskar’s eyes grew as his mouth shrank into a tight line. Amalia stared at her feet.
Anna took a breath. Hair grows back. She regarded Amalia quizzically, furrowing her brow for added effect. “Something looks different about you, Maus. I can’t figure out what it is.”
Amalia scanned her mother’s face and twitched into a fleeting little smile that vanished as soon as it appeared. “Mama, I…well, I mean, Oskar…”
“I just wanted to give her a little trim so she would look nice,” Oskar blurted. “But the scissors were so dull they didn’t work at all, so I got the knife from the kitchen. And, well, it didn’t work like I thought it would.”
Anna winced at the image of Oskar wielding a knife in close proximity to her daughter’s head. “Oskar. What were you thinking?”
The boy shook his head. “I wasn’t. I am sorry, Frau Klein.” He reverted to calling her Frau Klein when he was in trouble.
Relieved that Amalia still had a head on her shoulders, Anna decided to move on. So that’s why the little conspirators had cleaned the place so studiously. She suppressed a smile at the thought. Today was bad enough without adding anger or recriminations to the menu. And anyway, Madeleine would have laughed at it all had she been here. She looked from Amalia to Oskar and back again to Amalia. The children watched her every move, so she decided to drag out the suspense a bit longer.
“Well, then, what shall we do with the other half of your head, Maus? Or do you want to keep this Avant Garde style?” She took her daughter’s head in her hands and turned it from side to side. “I think you might have stumbled onto a new trend.”
Amalia giggled nervously. Anna elbowed her, then Oskar, and the three of them started laughing, loud and uncontrolled. A pressure valve released. For a moment, Madeleine was there in the room with them, enjoying the absurdities of life with her white hair and bright eyes, her unwavering love a steady light in their lives. She had been so good at knowing what mattered and what didn’t. As the three of them considered how to fix Amalia’s hair, Anna felt that energy wash over her and gave silent thanks for the reminder. After some silliness, they settled on a chin-length bob for Amalia that was much more grown-up than the traditional tight braids she had sported until now. After all, she’d be nine soon. Anna did her best with the dull scissors, and soon, Amalia looked reasonably presentable. Maybe they’d find a hairdresser to fix the rest.
That Anna would have to bury Madeleine had never crossed her mind, despite Madeleine’s frail health and age. In the few months since Anna and Amalia had arrived on her doorstep, displaced and rudderless, Madeleine had become her rock, the person she came home to, who would listen and stroke her hair and tell her things would work out. Madeleine was the last remnant of her previous life—the one before the war—to leave her. After all she had survived in her more than eighty years—two wars, the flu, the death of son and husband, the Depression, the Nazis, the bombs, the hunger, the terror—this would be the final note. It felt like the last chord of a piano concerto that left the audience wondering for a beat if there would be more to come. But there would be only silence.
Anna sat down in Madeleine’s chair under the window, lit a cigarette and considered how she would fill the silence that now surrounded them. In the distance, a plane propeller rumbled through the winter air, and she wondered where it was going. Released from the persistent tug of the gravity of this place, it had broken free to soar and go wherever it wanted. Like Madeleine’s spirit, she thought. She imagined herself sitting on the plane looking down on her bombed city, then settling back in her seat, closing her eyes and letting the machine carry her far from here to a place with electricity, food, and no men in uniforms altering her life’s trajectory at their whim. A place where she could decide her own fate.
When the clock ticked two, she could no longer avoid the task of getting ready for the funeral. Madeleine wouldn’t have minded if she wore her usual uniform of pants with a pair of men’s boots but probably the neighborhood biddies would, and Anna hated being the topic of conversation. Madeleine’s favorite suit was tucked away in the closet behind the blouses and summer dresses that each told a little story as Anna sorted through them—that afternoon in the cafe when they ordered a third helping of cake; the drive to the country to buy fresh asparagus; the night at the cinema followed by a walk through quiet streets not yet in the bombsights of American planes. Anna found the elegant black ensemble of a fitted jacket with big, covered buttons and a slim skirt that Madeleine had worn on any occasion that required a statement. Her “Myrna Loy suit,” she had called it because it somehow elevated the wearer to the most elegant and witty person in the room. Anna coveted the suit, which Madeleine had noticed. “One day,” she had said and patted Anna’s hand. Anna pulled it from its hanger and held it up to the light for inspection. A hint of Madeleine’s perfume escaped the fabric and she smiled. “One day” had arrived.
