Yannick Grannec - The Goddess of Small Victories

Ugly rumors are circulating through the cars: the United States might now enter the war. Kurt thinks they have no reason to. Muller worries that a Japanese provocation might make the Americans abandon their neutrality, cutting off the Pacific route to us. My normal optimism is struggling. It must be the lack of sugar. What I wouldn’t give for a Viennese coffee and a slice of Sacher torte! Last night I was surprised to find myself praying. I pray for all of you, my thoughts are with you .

Adele

I couldn’t figure out how to wash even my underclothes. I was so grubby. Only the cold kept us from smelling our own unpleasant odor. Kurt survived by holding a handkerchief soaked in eau de cologne over his nose and wrapping himself in blankets, piling all his clothes on top. I debated with myself for hours, as I could see he had his eye on my fur coat. But I decided to give it to the little girl, who was breaking my heart with her bright blue lips. Her parents tried to refuse. Finally they agreed. We swaddled her in the fur and eventually she settled down. I listened to her mother sing a Yiddish lullaby to her, but the husband made her stop. He was pale with fright. Instead, I sang her a German children’s song that I remembered my mother singing to me. The words and melody came back all by themselves, although I’d thought them lost: Guten Abend, gute Nacht, mit Rosen bedacht, mit Näglein besteckt, schlüpf unter die Deck . Kurt made me be quiet too. It was as dangerous to be German on this train as it was to be Jewish. I hummed. No one dared say anything.

Kurt’s complaining had finally stopped. He watched the endless countryside, raising an arm occasionally from his woolen sarcophagus to wipe the window clear. It was so dark out that nothing could be seen. He examined his own reflection, as if it might give him an answer. I drew an ∞ in the mist. He smiled before erasing it. To cover my embarrassment I drew a Russian doll for the little girl, then another inside it, and another inside that. She laughed. It was the first time I had heard her laugh.

I wrongly took his silence for jealousy, as he never liked me caring for others. Nor was he particularly haunted by the secret that the physicist Hans Thirring had told him in Berlin to pass on to Albert Einstein, that Nazi Germany would soon be capable of nuclear fission. He didn’t really believe it. Not right away. Kurt knew that others, too, carried the message. From all over Europe, the identical information was crossing the ocean and converging on Princeton.

While I was wondering whether the trip would ever end, he was thinking of the infinite. He queried his double in the night while other men, his peers, fought against time. Not just to get the damn bomb but to get it before anyone else.

February 2, 1940

Yokohama, Japan

Dear Ones ,

We’ve reached Yokohama and feel a great sense of relief. Finally we have air, water, heat! We arrived too late to take the Taft, for which we had reservations. We’ll have to wait more than two weeks to board another ship, the President Cleveland. In happier circumstances I would have been delighted: Japan is so amusing. Especially for me, never having traveled farther than Aflenz! The country is not as medieval as I thought, we have all the commodities we need. The streets are every bit as busy as the Ringstrasse: shiny cars, bikes going in every direction, horse carts and rickshaws, a kind of bicycle taxi drawn by poor wretches. I spend hours watching the people go by. Men in smart raincoats share the sidewalk with workers wearing funny shoes and even stranger hats. The women are mostly in traditional costume. I’ll try to bring you back one of these extraordinary silk confections. I have to be careful, though, because our reserves of cash are limited. Kurt has been trying for several days to get a money order from the Foreign Exchange Service but with no success. I need a new wardrobe, as we left with so little. Unfortunately, I find all the imported products much too expensive .

The Asiatics are not lemon yellow, as I had thought. Actually, they are pale, with elongated eyes and no eyelids. The workers are even quite dark, tanned by the sun. Some of the women, supposedly of ill repute, walk down the street with their faces painted white and their teeth blackened. I’d like to talk to them but we have no language in common. Yesterday I tried to explain to two lovely creatures that their kimonos were magnificent — they fled, laughing behind their sleeves .

The Japanese are polite, but very distant. They don’t really like foreigners much. We are staying in a comfortable hotel with plenty of hot water. I only emerge from my boiling hot bath to poke around in the neighborhood, but I never stray very far. There are men in uniform everywhere. They let us know that “long noses” (Westerners) are not allowed to wander like that. Yokohama is a very large port, and meat is scarce. The people make do with rice and fish drowned in that horrible brine whose stink pervades the streets and even gets into our clothes. At a street vendor’s stall, I tasted a wonderful fried food called tempura. I stuffed myself with these vegetable fritters, which are as light as clouds. Kurt looked on disapprovingly: he doesn’t trust the local hygiene. But the boiling oil must kill everything off … He eats only rice and tea. This diet is kind to his stomach, which suffered from the food on the Russian train. He rarely leaves the hotel room, where he works .

We are in good health. I don’t know how we managed to come through all that cold without catching pneumonia. We said goodbye to the Mullers in Vladivostok. I hope they manage the crossing without any problems. The city, which is very close to the Chinese territory annexed by the Japanese, was full of armed men. It was terribly chaotic there. I often think of little Suzanna. The sight of a uniform always terrified her, even when it was only one of the train staff. She was so feverish when we reached Vladivostok that her parents decided to wait several days before resuming their trip, in order to find medicine for her. They have family in Pennsylvania, and I’m hoping to hear from them once we get settled in the United States. Kurt sends a kiss. I smother you under a great load of kisses. I miss you all so much .

Sayonara! ( it means “goodbye” in Japanese ),

Adele

The little girl would never reach Pennsylvania, I was convinced of it, just as I knew that my letters were useless. I wrote them to revive my optimism, which our long journey had dampened. I’d left all my loved ones behind. I had prepared myself for the pain of it, but I was discovering the added loss of giving up my daily routine: the comfort of eating my favorite foods, of opening the window and seeing a familiar landscape. The one thing I had left was Kurt, in all his weakness. I’d built my life around a single person. I still don’t know whether it was a proof of love or of total idiocy. How can two people survive on a partially gnawed bone?

VIA RADIO-AUSTRIA NO. 40278

SAN FRANCISCO. USA. MARCH 5, 1940

TO THE ATTENTION OF

DR. RUDOLF GOEDEL

LERCHENFELDERSTR. 81. VIENNA.

LANDED YESTERDAY IN SAN FRANCISCO. BOTH HEALTHY. TELL MOTHER AND PORKERT FAMILY. MANY KISSES. ADELE AND KURT.