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Forget Me Not

Forget Me Not

By Patricia HuntPublished 3 years ago 9 min read
Top Story - March 2021
17
Forget Me Not
Photo by Streetwindy on Unsplash

The first thing I noticed as I circled the block searching for a place to park was the house. A modest, dark red brick bungalow, it contrasted dramatically with its neighbors by its impeccable cleanliness and order. The wrought iron fence gleamed coal black and shiny, the roof was spotless with not a single missing shingle, and the snow had been shoveled so neatly that the flagstone walkway looked scribed by a yardstick from sidewalk to stoop. The pristine white rectangles of yard were repeated in miniature by the curtained windows bracketing the polished oak door. The whole picture was framed by hedges trimmed to perfect symmetry. I remember thinking it must be the residence of a retired military officer and his wife. I fancied they had so cherished their tidy little home that for years they had resisted the flight to the suburbs, patiently hoping for the renaissance that was, in fact, finally beginning to scrub the grubby face of the city center.

My curiosity aroused, I began to park near the house every Tuesday and Thursday so I could walk past it on the way to my piano lesson. I gradually fleshed out my vision of the Colonel and his wife, living quietly behind the starched white curtains, listening to music, reading in front of a fire. I was quite sure that despite their diminutive abode they were tall and slender and vaguely British and come Spring would emerge in sunhats and sensible shoes to companionably tend their little plot. I theorized that I never saw either of them because my lesson was rather close to tea time. In order to improve my chances of spotting them, I soon changed to an earlier appointment.

Sure enough, one fresh green morning I was greeted by the sight of someone sitting on the front step. This, however, was definitely not my Colonel. In fact, it took a number of sightings of this same grizzled old man in his faded work shirt and tattered trousers before I would believe he in any way belonged to the house. As the weather warmed, though, he began tending the lovely little garden, and I accepted that he was no stranger to the home.

For a while I did not think he even knew the same person was walking slowly past him at the same time every Tuesday and Thursday, staring appreciatively as the garden blossomed and bloomed. Most days he sat absolutely motionless on the step, staring straight ahead, hands folded in his lap. He looked neither happy nor sad, interacting not at all with anything or anyone around him. And he would be sitting, still, when I returned from my lesson, apparently not having moved a muscle. Other days he would be busy in the garden. But even his weeding and pruning was done with a total lack of expression on his very old, very wrinkled face.

One morning, though, his eyes refocused to meet mine and his head moved in a small but unmistakable nod of greeting. And when several days later his magnificent rose bushes had suddenly exploded into lemon-yellow clouds, I was unable to contain myself. As he nodded, I smiled and said, ”Those are the most beautiful roses I have ever seen. I wish I knew your secret.” No smile in return, no movement; but as I reached the corner I heard him say, in a slow, deep, thickly accented voice like an echo from the bottom of an ancient mossy well, "Ya. . . Thank you, lady . . . They are for my wife . . . I promised her a house and yellow roses." Ah, the secret -- the lovely little house was his, shared with an adored one, the garden sown with love and tended with devotion.

I arrived early for my next lesson, thinking our conversation might continue. But he had retreated entirely, embarrassed, perhaps by having spoken of something so personal to a stranger. He was, after all, Old World German, product of a time and culture that, as I knew from my European grandmother, greatly valued privacy and discretion; the wide open, know-all-tell-all, aggressive friendliness of late Twentieth-Century Midwest America was almost certainly foreign to him. Despite encouraging smiles on my part, he returned to his reverie. As July sweltered by, I wilted and drooped along with the roses; he had trimmed our contact as deftly as he lopped the faded pompoms from their canes. The garden, however, would bloom again, more vigorously in fact for the gardener’s careful pruning.

How astonished I was, then, when on the first cool morning in August he looked straight into my eyes and thrust a small, black leather-covered book toward me, open to its first page. He cleared his throat, blinked repeatedly as if mentally rehearsing a speech one last time before the rise of the curtain, and said, “Here, lady . . . This is my Berta . . . You have eyes like her . . . Pretty . . . And kind.”

I gently took the book from his hand and examined the photograph, with names and dates carefully penned in old-fashioned script below the picture: “Berta Lise Sonnenblick, born January 15, 1920; Married to Bruno Wilhelm Strauss August 7, 1937.” And in a different hand and ink, "Died at Auschwitz, date unknown." Holding the book in my now-shaking hand, I gazed into the sweet, innocent face of Bruno’s young bride on her wedding day, her long, dark hair crowned with ribbons and roses. This woman had inspired a promise that had lasted a lifetime, the promise of a house with yellow roses. A promise so tenderly kept but shared only in her adoring husband’s imagination and heart. Overwhelmed and just barely composed, I was trying to think of something meaningful to say about grief and healing when I realized that he had shown me his Beloved on what would have been their 50th anniversary. As I looked at him, he said, "She is very beautiful, you think?" and I suddenly knew from the expectant tone in his voice and the twinkle in his eye that he was, in that moment, a very young man again, absolutely smitten, and that the only right response was, "Oh, so very beautiful. More lovely than all her roses. I am so happy you think my eyes are as kind as hers. Thank you for sharing your Berta with me." I handed him back the precious little book and memorized the only smile I ever saw on his face. Without another word he turned and walked back toward his house.

The rest of the Summer and Fall passed as if we had never shared even an ordinary moment, let alone such an extraordinary one. I smiled as I walked by, he nodded as he slowly put the garden to bed for the Winter. Once the snows came I stopped seeing him altogether. Apparently he shoveled on a schedule that did not coincide with my lessons. I thought about him, alone in the cold, but could not bring myself to knock, disturbing whatever life he lived behind the polished oak door. Twice I did break with etiquette, though. I dropped a note and my business card into his mailbox, so that he would have someone to call upon if he needed anything. And again in early Spring I left a note to tell him I was moving out of town. I wanted him to know I would miss Berta’s roses and would keep him and his beautiful wife in my prayers.

I was sure I would never hear from Bruno again. But about a year later a package and letter arrived for me from a Mr. Schmidt, the attorney who was settling Bruno’s estate. Mr. Schmidt wanted me to know that he had been Bruno’s friend when they were both young farm boys in Germany. They had become reacquainted after the War when they both settled in Ohio, and had spoken briefly shortly before Bruno’s peaceful death. Because Bruno had made me a beneficiary in his Will -- a part of the bequest being the contents of the package -- he thought I should know more of the greater story.

The bare bones of Bruno’s tale were tragically common -- happy young couple, successful little farm, plans for family and future, all taken away in one foul stroke by the Nazis. Through strength of body and character and will, Bruno survived the Bergen Belsen concentration camp and after the liberation searched long and hard for his beloved Berta. He finally accepted the accounts of others who had survived Auschwitz that incontrovertibly pointed to her death, went back to his former home one last time to retrieve the few precious possessions they had buried before the Nazis came, and left Germany forever.

Mr. Schmidt hoped I could appreciate that however peculiar Bruno’s choice of living the rest of his life in the sole company of Berta’s imaginary presence might seem to me, to those who had survived such extremes it was understandable. He wanted me to know that Bruno had long ago reached the point where he was truly content in his imaginary world, speaking only the rare “thank you” to a grocery clerk or postman, satisfied in knowing he had kept his promise to the woman who had always been the center of his universe. It was only when the two men met shortly before Bruno’s death that Bruno mentioned me as the friend he had met in Berta’s garden and explained what he wanted to put in his Will. Mr. Schmidt believed that after so many years of keeping Berta “alive” Bruno, without any living relatives, had wanted to find someone to whom he could entrust that living memory. Thus, in the box were the last remaining pieces of Bruno and Berta’s wedding china -- a beautiful porcelain teapot, two delicate cups and saucers, decorated with forget-me-nots-- and the little black leather book containing Berta’s photograph and many notes of endearment he had written to her over the years.

In addition, Bruno had instructed that their house be given to the Federation of German-American Clubs to be used as a cultural center, with specific instructions for its Director to be someone capable of giving lessons in rose cultivation; had left a portion of his savings and investment accounts to endow the center’s maintenance and educational program; and had named me the recipient of the balance of his estate -- $20,000 he had saved from his job in earlier decades as Head Gardener for the City’s Nature Center.

Mr. Schmidt closed his astonishing communication by saying he wanted me to come to Cleveland to finalize the paperwork. He closed by saying how much he was looking forward to meeting me, the woman Bruno had described with a smile when he outlined his last wishes, saying, “This is for the lady with kind eyes. I want her to remember Berta.”

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