Ted sat on the living room couch holding Julia’s journal in his hands and staring into the glowing embers of the fireplace. The house was quiet. He had just tucked Robert into bed and he prayed that, for once, his son would sleep through the night without being woken by one of the terrible nightmares that had haunted him since the horrific accident and Julia’s death.
Set on the coffee table facing Ted was a framed photo-graph of Julia—the last picture he’d taken of her, at the moment she’d boarded the Normandie to leave for Europe. She was wearing a navy suit, the square-shouldered jacket belted snugly at her slender waist and the trim skirt showing off her shapely legs; over one arm she carried a travel bag and cape. She was turning to smile and wave goodbye at her husband and son. For the rest of our lives, that’s all we’ll have, Ted thought. That one final smile. Why, oh why, did I let her go?
His anguish was so deep it verged on anger, even hatred. He stared down at the journal, his eyes burning. If it hadn’t been for her Chronicle assignment, she would be alive at that minute. The stupid notebook! It had been rescued from the undamaged hold of the Hindenburg and forwarded to Ted; Julia was lost, but the journal survived. Where was the justice in that?
Ted fought an urge to hurl the small book into the fire. Instead, he opened it gingerly. At the sight of Julia’s familiar handwriting, tears sprang to his eyes. The script was large and loopy; she always wrote too fast, her hand never quite able to keep up with the speed of her thoughts. Ted stroked the page, aching from the wish that he could be touching Julia herself, not just her words.
As he began to read the journal, however, his expression changed from one of sorrow to disbelief. Julia’s hastily scribbled notes were shocking. German Jews are being forced to live in horrendous conditions, she wrote. In some instances, their property is seized and they are arrested on trumped-up charges and sent to work camps. It seems as if the Nazis want to get rid of them altogether. Certainly they don’t want the Jews to have any economic or political presence in Germany.
Quickly, Ted turned the page to another entry. It is not only German Jews who are in danger, Julia had continued. According to my sources, Hitler has expansionist designs—his eye is on Austria. Conditions for the Jews, however, continue to deteriorate. All but the Nazis live in great fear of what Hitler will do next. Why?
Ted closed the journal. At that moment, he heard footsteps on the staircase. “Dad?” a fearful voice called out.
“In here, son.”
Robert, dressed in pajamas, hurried into the living room. “In my dream, everything’s on fire. Mom’s on fire and you’re on fire and there’s nothing I can do.”
Ted put his arms around his son, who was trying manfully not to cry. “I’m here with you, Bob,” he said. “We’re both all right.”
Robert buried his face against his father’s chest. “Why’d she have to die, Dad? I wish she would come back.”
It was a cold autumn evening, and Ted’s breath came in white puffs. Pausing at a street corner on his way home from work, he handed a few coins to a paperboy, who slapped the latest edition of the New York Chronicle into his palm. Ted flipped the paper open and read as he walked
The headline was printed in large, ominous type: “Thousands Arrested During ‘Kristallnacht’ Riots.” In horror, Ted read the story of what had happened recently in Germany on the date that had been dubbed Kristallnacht, “the night of broken glass.” Synagogues and stores had been looted and burned, people injured and killed, and no one knew exactly how many Jews had been arrested and sent to camps.
Europe teetered on the verge of war; no one could deny it any longer. Hitler had forcibly annexed Austria, and Czechoslovakia and Poland were braced for attacks. German Jewish refugees had begun to pour into New York, bringing horror stories of conditions in Germany and of the daily outrages committed by officers of Hitler’s monstrous army.
Tucking the newspaper into his briefcase, Ted turned down the street where Robert’s friend Jason Hoch lived; Robert was playing at Jason’s until dinnertime. Kristallnacht... Ted shuddered at the horror of it. And mixed with his dismay was a sense of bitter irony. He remembered reading Julia’s Berlin journal many months ago. Hadn’t she predicted this state of affairs?
A grim smile twisted Ted’s lips as he rang the Hochs’ bell. In a strange way, what was a disaster for the free world was a triumph for the journalist Julia Marks-Wakefield. Her final story had been confirmed. At long last, she would indeed have broken “the big one.”
