He smiled again. If he saw her eyes glazing over like she might weep, he was too much of a gentleman to mention it. “It’s probably a good thing for you to use those papers.”
She nodded.
“Is your sponsor going to meet you here?” he asked. Alina was amazed at how well he spoke German.
She shook her head. “No….”
The sun was bearing down on her shoulders. She cleared her throat and tried to sound like she was making casual conversation. When in reality what she wanted to say was, “Please help me. Please protect me. I am all by myself here in this strange country. I hardly speak English. I don’t know what is going to happen to me.” But she just stood there trying to muster a smile.
“Is your sponsor going to meet you here?” she asked.
“Yes, my brother-in-law sponsored me. My wife came to America first. She’s been here for about a year now. I kept working until I could get a visa. Now, I will join her and the rest of our family.”
He was married. She felt a lump forming in her throat. She wanted to run away. What a fool she was making of herself. Of course he was married. What had she expected, that some strange man she’d met on the Red Liner was going to take her in and care for her? Pull yourself together, Alina, she thought. Her voice came out hoarse, but she tried to sound casual. “Oh well, that must be wonderful for you. You will finally be reunited with your family.”
“Yes, I am excited. My wife and I were only married a few months when her brother offered to sponsor us. We both thought that it was a good idea to come to America, but we hardly had any time together before she left. Still, I am glad we did it this way, there is opportunity for a better life here.”
“So they say.” Alina smiled then looked away from him at the water where the boat was docked. Johan’s body was still on that ship. God help me, she thought. Then she thought of Johan. And she quickly wiped a tear from her cheek with the back of her hand.
Chapter 30
Alina
After Adelheid passed through Ellis Island, she found herself walking through a crowded park filled with people reuniting with their loved ones. They were laughing and crying and hugging all at the same time. No one awaited Alina.
Adelheid Strombeck. I am going to have a difficult time getting used to this new name, she thought, but she continued to walk, trying not to let her fear get the best of her. Alina saw Ugo across the walkway. He was waving to a man who looked strong but aged. The man ran over to greet him. Then a young woman came walking over to Ugo. She was pretty and slender with striking wavy red hair. The dress she wore was fitted and modern, making Alina feel frumpy in her old-fashioned, dirty traveling dress. Alina was lost and sick to her stomach just looking at the redheaded woman as she embraced Ugo. She must be his wife, Alina thought.
The line for inspection had been long and it had been hours since Alina had sat down. She was exhausted and hungry, very hungry. She had nowhere to go. No one to meet. When she’d taken the money, she’d also taken Johan’s father’s address, but how could she appear at his door? She wasn’t even Johan’s wife. And worse yet, Johan had made it clear that his father didn’t want to see either of them. What was she going to do? Finally she saw a bench. She plopped down and set her small suitcase beside her. There was a big sign with black lettering, but because her English was so limited she was only able to read the word “Park.”
So, she thought sadly, I’ve come all the way to America to sit on a bench in the park. She noticed that there were other people around her. People who seemed to be living in the park. They were mostly men, but a few were women and children too. Some had piles of dirty belongings that they were using as pillows. Some of them walked up to her and asked her something. By their gestures it appeared to Alina that they were begging for money. But since she didn’t speak English she wasn’t sure that she even had enough to share. She had to hold on to every penny. The men living in the park looked rough and she wondered how safe she would be once night fell. In the darkness would one of these desperate people rob her, or worse? Alina wiped the sweat from her brow. Groups of immigrants who had come in from the harbor rushed by her with their suitcases. Perhaps she should just use the address that Johan had given her for his father. He might throw her out. It was very possible, but what else was she to do? The sun was low in the sky and soon it would be night. She was a young woman alone in a park surrounded by what appeared to be hungry, homeless people. Alina sucked in a ragged breath. Don’t cry, she thought. It won’t help you. Then she squared her shoulders, got up, took a moment to stretch her back, and began following the rest of the crowd of immigrants out of the park and into the city.
If she thought Berlin was bustling with people, then New York was jam-packed. Everywhere she heard voices, conversations in what seemed like a million different languages, none of which she recognized. Keep walking, she told herself. Maybe you will hear someone speak Yiddish or German and you can ask him or her how to get to the address of Johan’s father. There was no place else to go. What else could she do? Alina walked for several blocks until her feet ached and she was exhausted. It had been a traumatic day, and she still had no place to go. She passed couples, and women with babies in buggies, men in suits, until she finally heard two young girls speaking German. The dialect was a little different than hers, but at least she understood them. Her heart skipped a beat. She ran up to the girls, perhaps a little too quickly because one of them stepped back and stared at her suspiciously.
“I am Adelheid Strombeck. I don’t speak English,” Alina said in German. “I am sorry to bother you. But I heard you speaking German and I am lost. I am looking for this address.” Alina had been holding the paper with Johan’s father’s address written on it so tightly that the sweat from her hand had blurred the text. But it was still readable. One of the girls took the paper.
“You can take the subway,” she told Alina in German. “Here, let me explain. You take the A train for three stops, then get off and transfer to the B train….”
Suddenly it all seemed too much for Alina. She was overwhelmed and somehow hearing her native language spoken in this foreign country touched her so deeply that she started crying. There was so much to remember. The A train, the B train, how was she to ever find these trains when she didn’t speak, let alone read, English. Then if by some miracle she stumbled into Johan’s father’s neighborhood, how would she ever find the address? Her eyes burned and her head ached from the heat, the voyage, the stress, and the grief of losing Johan. “I’m sorry,” Alina said. “Please, forgive me for this emotional outburst.” She tried to smile. Then she cleared her throat and said, “Explain again. I didn’t catch all of the directions.”
The girl, who had been suspicious of Alina from the first moment, shook her head, but the other one had kind eyes. “Here,” she said as she handed Alina a cotton handkerchief.
“Thank you,” Alina said in German. The girl smiled. She was pretty, Alina thought.
“Are you going to see a relative?” the kind girl asked.
“I don’t know if he is a relative,” Alina said. “I just got into America. My husband died on the boat on the way over here from Europe. I am all alone and the man who lives at the address that’s written on this paper was his father. But he doesn’t even know me, and I doubt he will welcome me into his home.” Alina looked into the girl’s eyes. They were warm. In a way they reminded her of Lotti. Why did everything always bring back some painful memory from her past? Maybe because she wanted to see Lotti in this girl the same way she wanted to see her father in Ugo. It was a way to hold on, to grasp, even for a moment, all that she’d lost.
“Do you need a job?” the girl asked.
“Yes…” Alina said. “But I don’t know what I could do. I have no real skills, and the language….”
“I am Wilma and this is Simone. You said your name is Adelheid?”
“Yes, Adelheid Strombeck,” Alina said. Would she ever get used to being Adelheid Strombeck?
> “Well, come with us, Adelheid, maybe we can help you.”
Alina nodded and began to follow the two girls, but she felt a lump forming in her throat. Her mind was racing. Alina didn’t even know these two young woman and had no idea where they were leading her. Doubt clouded her thoughts. Would she have been better off staying in Germany with Lotti? Yes, Germany was a treacherous place, especially for a Jew. But, at least she knew someone. She was not so alone. Everything around here in America was a reminder of how foreign she was, from the signs on the street to the people. Lotti had warned her not to go and live with Johan. But she’d wanted to go to university. Now, here she was in a strange country without any family. For the first time in her young life, Alina Margolis was all alone.
If she ever found a safe place to live, she would write to Lotti and tell her about Johan. Just thinking about communicating with Lotti made her feel a little better. After all, Lotti was his sister and Alina’s best friend she deserved to know about Johan’s passing. God, how she missed those days of working at the orphanage with Lotti, but she decided that even though she loved Lotti, she would keep Johan’s secret. She wouldn’t tell Lotti about Johan being her half-brother by another father. If Johan had wanted her to know that, he would have told her. She would not betray him in death.
Alina hurried along, pushing her way through the crowds on the busy streets. She swallowed her fears as she continued following two girls he had only known for a few minutes, Wilma and Simone, to an unknown destination.
Chapter 31
The two strange girls could have been leading Alina anywhere. But they brought her to a looming dark building that stood behind an iron gate. Alina looked at the fortress and for a moment she considered running away. But what was the point. She had nowhere else to go. Next door to the large building and, behind the gate as well, Alina saw a beautiful cathedral with stained glass. This is a church, but I have no idea what religion it belongs to. When they entered the stone building, it was very quiet even though many young women were scattered about the house. Some were washing windows or floors. Others were hurrying along the corridor. Some of the women wore long black dresses with headpieces that covered their hair. Alina recognized their uniform because she’d seen them before in Germany. They were nuns.
“Come on, I’m going to introduce you to the Mother Superior,” Wilma said. “Don’t be afraid. You look like you’ve seen a ghost. This is a nunnery. The nuns help us to find work. Sometimes we babysit for children or we go and help crippled, old, or sick people. Sometimes we just clean houses. Jobs like that. You won’t need any real skills. But, I’ll tell you right now that the nuns expect us to be well behaved, and we do have a lot of chores. Still, they feed us. And, some of the girls have even decided that the church is their calling.
“This is all part of the Catholic Church. You look like you’ve never seen anything like this before. So I assume that you must be Lutheran?”
Alina nodded. “Lutheran, yes….”
“I am too. But when I came over from Germany I met up with a group of lovely girls who’d come from Ireland. They were living here and the nuns were helping them to find work. My grandmother had sponsored me, but by the time I arrived, she’d passed on. So, I was glad to find this place. I’ll introduce you to the girls who live here after you get approval to stay from the mother superior. Tell her you’re Catholic.”
Wilma knocked on a heavy, looming wooden door. The dark mahogany shone, like it had recently been polished. “Come in.” The voice that answered the knock was calm but authoritative.
“Reverend Mother, this is my new friend Adelheid Strombeck. She just got here from Germany and has nowhere to go. She has no family and no one to turn to. She’s a Catholic.”
The reverend mother looked at Alina. “The first thing you must realize is that there is no room for lazy girls here. You will have to pull your own weight.”
Alina nodded. “I understand.”
“Sometimes we are able to find you girls jobs like nannies or housekeepers. That sort of thing. But until we find you work, there is cleaning and cooking to be done right here, and there is to be no complaining. We don’t take well to ungrateful girls. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Very well. Go with Wilma and she’ll find you a place to sleep.”
They walked through the long corridors. Wilma put her finger over her lips. “It’s important that we don’t make a lot of noise here,” Wilma whispered. Alina didn’t say anything. She just continued to follow Wilma. She had no idea what life in a convent would like. But she was grateful to have a place to stay. At least she wouldn’t be alone in the park after the sun set at the mercy of those hungry, desperate men. When she thought of the way their eyes had bored through her, Alina shivered. No matter what the nuns expected of her, it had to be better than that.
“Thank you, for bringing me here.” Alina’s voice was choking up with gratitude.
“They do work us hard and they expect us to be decent women, but all in all it’s not so bad. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not easy, but it could be a lot worse. Anyway, I want you to meet some of the others. Especially Eileen. She’s the girl from Ireland who brought me here. She’s funny and very witty. You’ll like her. Her sister Coleen is here too. She’s going to be a nun.”
Alina smiled. She tried not to think of her family or of Johan or of being Jewish. This was a new page in her life. She had to be flexible if she was going to survive.
Chapter 32
Alina
The mother superior had not been lying when she said that there would be hard work. Alina learned quickly that living in the convent meant adhering to strict rules. She watched young novices as they began their journey to become nuns or sisters as the girls called them. The girls were required to dress in clothes that underplayed all feminine aspects of their bodies. Even their undergarments were subject to approval. If they didn’t own proper clothing, the nuns provided it, and the girls were required to attend church services. The services were not so different from the ones she’d attended sometimes on high holidays at the synagogue when she was a child. But because her family wasn’t religious, she didn’t attend very often. At the convent the mandatory attendance in church was much more frequent and sometimes she wished she didn’t have to go- she was tired, or just wanted time to herself. But there was no refusing. Great dedication was required of the nuns and priests. They were expected to remain chaste for their entire lives, and Alina wondered how they could manage that.
But every day Alina suffered from anxiety, because she knew that soon she would be swelling with child. If anyone at the convent discovered that she was pregnant out of wedlock, there would be Hell to pay.
So, she knew she had to make up a story to explain her pregnancy to the mother superior. She lied and said that her husband had died on the ship. It wasn’t really a lie, she told herself. They would have been married had it not been for the Nuremberg laws. And if he had lived, God bless his soul, Johan would have married her as soon as they were able. But, that wasn’t the only lie she was living with. She had told them at the convent that she was Catholic.
It only took three weeks for Alina to be sent out on a job as a live-in nanny and maid for an elderly couple who were caring for their ten-year-old grandson. Both of the child’s parents had perished in an automobile accident, and so he’d gone to live with his only relatives, his father’s aging parents. The old couple were originally from Germany and had migrated to the US before the First World War. However, they had not even attempted to learn English. Since they were Catholics and had come to America before the war began, they were recognized by the church as Americans. When the couple had put in a request for help, several German-speaking girls were called to interview for the position. Alina was one of them. She was asked if she could tolerate caring for an elderly woman who was ill, an elderly man who was in a wheelchair, and a young boy. Of all of the girls who were interviewed she was the only one who
said she could handle the job.
When the door was opened to the apartment where the couple lived, Alina was hit in the face by the unpleasant odor of filth. She should have expected as much. Both of the older people were unable to clean and the child was too young to care. It took her the first three days to clean the apartment and put the place in order. Gunther and Hilda Meister were kind but very sickly and feeble. There was little interaction between the couple and Alina. Most of the time the Meisters were in their bed asleep. Alina brought them food, but neither of them accepted her offer to help them bathe, which they did rarely. She did what she could, but there was nothing more she could do for them.
Until Alina arrived the boy, Hans, had been running wild without any supervision. Although he was only ten years old he was already smoking in the house and had been caught stealing. He hovered in the alleyways with a group of rebellious boys who were older than he was. These boys used him to break into houses and burglarize because he was still small enough to fit easily through windows. Something had to be done before Hans ended up in prison. The grandparents discussed sending Hans off to a brownshirt camp for the remainder of the summer. They knew he was a handful and far too much of a delinquent for Adelheid to control. The brownshirt camps, although they were filled with Nazi propaganda, offered a healthy outdoor setting and plenty of discipline.
The grandparents hoped that being away from his friends would be a benefit to Hans. One afternoon when Alina brought Mrs. Meister’s lunch to her bed, Mrs. Meister asked Alina to sit down and talk with her. Alina was glad for the company. So she sat on the edge of the bed. The room had a putrid, musty odor.
“Adelheid, my husband, Gunther, and I are having a great deal of problems with Hans, as you know.”