“HEIL HITLER!”
The crowd, as one, raised their arms and shouted it. Stirring uneasily in my seat, I wasn’t sure what to do. Should I join in? I was grateful for the bouquet in my arms; bending my head down, I sniffed at the white, starlike flowers—
I glanced at Charles; he sat next to me, erect as always; never did he wonder what to do, how to act. He was simply himself, immune to persuasion, and once more I had to admire him, even in this throng of spectators. Even with Chancellor Hitler himself standing on a platform just a few rows below us. The red flags with the swastika, that black mark that looked like propeller blades bent backward, hung behind him, before him, over him; they hung from every balcony and banister in the enormous
Our hosts for the day, Herr Goring and his wife, were seated next to us in a private box; Truman and Kay Smith, the American military attache and his wife, were with us as well. We’d been in Berlin for more than a week, and today, our last day, happened to coincide with the opening of the 1936 Summer Olympics. Charles had hoped we would be able to speak with Chancellor Hitler himself, but it seemed now that we had to be content with merely sitting near him.
The sheer spectacle of the opening ceremony, of course, would have prevented any meaningful conversation; the fevered crowd, the endless salutes, the songs; I was hoarse from shouting. And I did not speak German well; I found the language harsh and guttural, my ear simply couldn’t find it pleasing, and so my brain refused to try to make sense of it. I’d relied on Kay to translate during our stay.
“Is it not a fine day, Herr Colonel? Is Berlin not a fine city? I trust you have found it so—but of course, you are famous for finding cities, are you not?” Laughing at his own joke, Herr Goring slapped his thigh. He spoke excellent English, although he did so with a thick accent. It was rather a surprise, coming from a man who looked so much like a pig farmer from a children’s book; he was huge, portly, with a shiny, jowly peasant’s face.
Charles smiled politely. “Yes, yes,” he shouted over more cheers from the crowd as another country’s athletes marched into the stadium. “Berlin is quite impressive. We have very much enjoyed our stay.”
“We are so proud that you inspected our
“Naturally, I was honored. Although as a military man, I cannot offer any specific insight, you understand. Even if the United States and Germany are allies.”
“Of course. We are simply happy that you have visited at last. France and England cannot have you all to themselves!” And Goring laughed again—it was more like a donkey bray. He was very jovial, very eager to please. Although not very polished; I wondered how he had risen to such a position—minister of the
His wife smiled indulgently at him; she was a pure Brunehilde, a daughter of Norse gods. Fleshy, rosy- cheeked, with blond hair in a braid atop her head, nearly as tall as her husband. I’d found her very cold, however, to me.
There was another roar from the crowd.
“Oh, look! It’s the United States team!” Sitting up straight, I was proud to see the rows of American athletes, all in white, as they marched by the stand. Proud to see that unlike the other countries, they did not dip their flag in front of the chancellor’s box, even if this drew a shocked murmur from the crowd.
“Charles, didn’t they look fine?” I called over to my husband.
Charles merely nodded, giving no indication he was proud of his country, nor that he even missed it.
I noticed a group of young boys approaching Chancellor Hitler’s box. They were clad in the black shorts and brown shirts of the Hitler Youth organization, but their faces were so young. This group must have been about five or six. Feeling that familiar tug on my heart, I smiled as the smallest bowed, so solemnly.
After more than four years, I still couldn’t look at a little boy without thinking of him.
My husband did not notice them; he was absorbed in his single-minded way with the ceremony unfolding before us. He seemed so relaxed, happy, even; the way he’d been all week. He had responded to Germany by going back in time, I thought; he’d reacted to the polite yet adoring crowds with a gleam in his eye, a surprised, shyly pleased gleam. The same gleam I had first noticed in the newsreels I’d seen of him, after he landed in Paris. Back when his face was open, boyish; back when he did not know the dark side of fame.
Back when I was just a girl in a movie theater, marveling at the hero on the screen.
Stifling a sigh, I turned back to the crowd, many of whom were smiling and waving our way, occasionally tossing bouquets up at us. I wondered who they saw when they looked at me. The ambassador’s daughter? The aviator’s wife?
Or the lost boy’s mother?
Minister Goring finally seemed to register my presence; he had not spoken one word to me until now. He had not seemed to notice me much this entire visit; his attention was riveted on Charles, always. Even a man as important as Herr Goring behaved like an adoring acolyte around my husband.
“You like Germany as well, Frau Lindbergh? You see how beloved we are by all the world! Of course, as an author, you might wish to write about us!”
“You are an author?” his wife inquired, with a smirk to her rosy lips. “You?”
“Mrs. Lindbergh is a famous author.” Kay Smith leaped to my defense. Despite her tiny size—she was even smaller than I was—she possessed fierce confidence, hyperarticulate certainty in her own beliefs. I was happy to let her speak for me; I admired and liked her tremendously, even after such a short acquaintance.
“Oh. Famous?” Frau Goring purred. “I apologize. I did not know.”
“Not really,” I corrected her. “I’ve written some articles, and a book about our flight to the Orient.”
“Which became a best seller,” Charles interjected, looking at me sternly.
I nodded but felt my face flush, and I buried it in the cool flowers in my hand; I wished I could claim my achievements with the pride of accomplishment, but I simply couldn’t. Everything I did now seemed shaded by a ghost or a shadow: the baby’s, or Charles’s.
At Charles’s relentless urging—why had I ever confided my hopes to this man who did not believe in hopes, only action?—I had finally attempted to write. I tried to recapture my passion for language, for playing with words almost as if they were flowers to be constantly rearranged into beautiful bouquets. I tried to remember that once I had had dreams of my own; good dreams, not nightmares of empty cribs and open windows. It wasn’t easy; my youthful poems and attempts seemed silly to me now. Reality had so intruded in my life that flowery verse seemed fanciful, foolish, even.
But Charles insisted that I do something with my life other than mourn our son; he insisted it would be good for me. I also suspected he thought it would be good for him; another trophy in the closet—an accomplished wife. First my pilot’s license; now a best seller. It was expected of me.
I obeyed him, as always. My lone defiance of his authority was like a scar on our marriage, but it was a scar I thought only I could see. And I was eager to keep it that way.
Working for months on an account of our trip to the Orient, in the end I still wasn’t satisfied with it; I had found it impossible to capture the innocence of that time before my baby’s death. It had done modestly well, and Charles was proud of it, although I couldn’t help but think that most people bought it out of morbid curiosity. The bereaved mother’s little book—could you read her tragedy between the lines? I’d imagined people paging feverishly through it, eager to find evidence of a splotched tear, a blurry word, a barely suppressed sob.
“Germany is a country of poets and authors, of course,” Herr Goring continued. “Goethe, Schiller.”
“Thomas Mann,” I added eagerly. “
Kay inhaled sharply.
“Ah.” Goring stared at me for a long moment, the genial farmer’s smile still on his face, even as his eyes glittered with some strange warning. “Mann. Yes. But what a pity he married a Jew.”
My smile faded. “Surely that has nothing to do with his books and stories? They’re great literature.”
