The German Wife(44)

“...right out the front of my house—that’s at 1401 Beetle Avenue, sir...Yes, it says ‘Nazi’...I’m not sure what you mean...Well, no, sir...Actually, yes, I did think you would come to—I see. Is defacing public property not a crime in this country?...No, no. I understand. Yes, okay. Thank you. Fine.”

He came to the door of the living room, his expression grim.

“What are they going to do?” I asked.

“Officer Johnson said if it was bothering me, I could paint over it,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief.

“Aren’t they coming to investigate?”

Jürgen unwound his bow tie as he shook his head.

“But...why not? This is harassment!”

“The police officer said it’s to be expected, given the circumstances,” Jürgen muttered bitterly. “He suggested I might want to buy the paint in bulk so I’ve got some ready for next time.”



20


Lizzie

El Paso, Texas
1935

Henry and I sold everything we could at a yard sale and bought bus tickets to El Paso. We arrived on a blustery spring day in 1935, just a week after we buried our parents, and checked into a rooming house, with every little thing we had left in the world neatly packed into two suitcases.

I’d never been to a city before. I’d seen photos in the newspaper, so I thought I knew what it would be like, but I wasn’t prepared for the sensory overload. Cars and trucks roared past us, people hurried by, store signs and street signs and clothing were all so bright. Even the air smelled wrong, like a tractor had just backfired right near me.

There was no time to say goodbye to the land we loved or to begin to mourn our parents, but as I found myself completely out of place, the immensity of the loss and the abruptness of the change all hit me at once. I hadn’t cried much other than the day Mother and Daddy left us. I didn’t even cry when Pastor Williams picked us up from the farm to take us to the bus stop. But it wasn’t car exhaust causing my eyes to sting as I looked around the tiny room Henry and I would be sharing. He set his suitcase on the bed and I set mine on the little sofa, staring down at it so Henry didn’t see the tears in my eyes.

“Lizzie,” he said gently, and when I composed myself and turned back to face him, he grinned and pointed to a string hanging from the roof. Back home, electric lights were only for the rich—but it was obvious that the rooming house wasn’t a place for rich people. I found the contradiction to be perplexing. I walked briskly across the room to tug the string. The light flickered on, so I pulled the string again, to turn it off, then repeated the process, momentarily distracted by the novelty.

“And indoor plumbing too,” Henry said, as he stretched out on the bed and crossed his arms beneath his head. “See? This is fine. And once I start working for the CCC, you’ll have this room all to yourself.”

Henry was convinced he’d find work in the city, all because of an article he’d read in the newspaper about Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps—the CCC. He was only a few months away from twenty-five, and as far as we could tell, the program was only for young men up to twenty-five. But Henry “had a good feeling” they’d take him anyway.

“What kind of a job do you think I’m going to get, Henry?” I shifted the pile of linen to the side of the sofa and sat. It was springy and lumpy and it smelled suspiciously like someone else’s sweat.

“Well, sis, you just have to ask yourself what you want to do. I like working with my hands—fixing things, building things. What do you like?”

“Farming,” I said flatly. Henry winced.

“We’re in the city now.”

“That’s my point, Henry. All I know how to do is drive a tractor. Collect eggs. Help a horse if she’s stuck in foal. I can sew a button on but I can’t sew a dress. I don’t have any skills.”

“Tomorrow you get out there and go talk to some businesses.”

“And if the CCC hires you, you’ll live there?” I asked. My voice wobbled but I lifted my chin. I told myself that things had changed, and I just needed time to get used to it, but I was terrified of being separated from Henry. All that had got me through that awful week was the hope that he’d make sure that we were both okay.

“You aren’t afraid, are you? You’ve never been afraid of anything.”

If only he knew. There wasn’t much in life that scared me, but the thought of being all alone in that city was enough to make my stomach cramp.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said abruptly, and I started to make up the sofa. “I’m just wondering when I get the good bed.”

But just two weeks later, Henry and I found ourselves standing on the street with our suitcases by our feet. As cheap as it was, the rooming house fees had cleaned us out, and the CCC did not offer Henry a job. Even if they had hired him, his employment would only have lasted till his twenty-fifth birthday—just two short months away. Not even Henry’s charm could circumvent the eligibility criteria for an in-demand government program. We learned that when the CCC advertised vacancies in the past, the line of applicants stretched around several city blocks. For every potential job in El Paso, there was a hundred or more desperate candidates.

“It will be okay,” Henry said firmly. “Maybe we sleep outside tonight, but something good will come up tomorrow.”