The Peace Bridge

Chapter 1 Leaving on a Jet Plane

Halfway through my college senior year, I knew for certain the answer to the age-old question of what I wanted to do after graduation. Except, I think I’d always known. And it wasn’t so much what I wanted to do, but what I had to do. No one had asked me to volunteer for this assignment, nor would I earn any congratulatory hugs and kisses for doing it. On the contrary, I was acutely aware of the consequences my decision would have: one member of my family would not be amused. Strangely, that was the person I was doing it for. As the season to be jolly was upon us, I broke the news. From Dad’s side we had a nominal connection to Christian traditions, and we always did presents and a big dinner on the day. With that in mind, it was particularly inconsiderate of me, almost cruel, to choose the occasion for my announcement. But we were rarely all together anymore, so I seized the opportunity.

With one swift stroke, delivered in two simple sentences, I ruined the holiday season of 1971. Not to mention the long-term effects I unleashed.

“Mama, Papa, everyone, I’ve decided to do a master’s degree.” My heart clogged my throat, but my voice forced its way past. “And I’m going to do it in Mainz.”

A conversation stopper. Dad, his folks Oma and Opa Zimmer and my brothers, David and Albert, first stared at me with bulging eyes and dropped chins. Then in unison their heads swiveled to Mom. She had laid down her fork and was slowly going purple. Without a word she rose from the table and disappeared upstairs.

You’d think her daughter had just proclaimed she intended to spend a year in hell. Of course for Mom, hell and Germany were pretty much synonymous.

The afore-mentioned master's degree? A pretense, of course.

No way could I tell them what I really had in mind, but it was simple. Like some mystical heroine, I would leave my home in Princeton on my quest and travel to Mainz, which from my mother’s perspective was located smack dab in the middle of enemy territory, just west of Frankfurt. And in Frankfurt, the city where Mom had been born into a Jewish banking family, I believed I’d find the key to unlocking the door in the wall of silence. Hidden on the other side of the door, that healing elixir known as truth awaited me. I’d return home with it the following summer. Mom would drink of it, and like a modern wonder drug, it would cure her. What form this truth would take and how or why it could possibly help, I couldn’t articulate. But I had a gut feeling that wouldn’t let go of me and it was telling me I had to do this. Yes, I was perhaps pathetically naïve. But someone had to do something and I seemed to be the only one of my siblings interested in the job.

After my announcement Mom spent the rest of Christmas vacation upstairs, cocooned in her room, only venturing forth for emergency visits to her therapist. Come January when school resumed, however, she returned to her teaching post. She rarely let “spells” keep her from her classroom.

During my final semester at university, I braced myself for recurring outbursts of anger and reproach, like those that Mom had aimed at my brothers in the months before they moved to New York City a few years earlier. To my relief, she displayed surprising equanimity. Which is not to say the atmosphere was unencumbered. The tension between us was mute but palpable; it smoldered beneath the surface, behind her tight lips and staring eyes. We didn’t converse but spoke only in polite monosyllables, sticking to neutral subjects like the weather, the laundry and the dinner menu. And so it continued, at least until the massacre of the Israeli wrestling squad at the Munich Olympics occurred. The tragedy delivered ample evidence to validate all her fears and prejudices. That was in early September, only three weeks prior to my departure, and it unleashed our very own hurricane season. Mom raged like a tropical storm. With eyes bloodshot and hair in disarray, she confronted me. “How can you go to a country where such horrifying things happened – and are still happening? You’re betraying the whole family. You’re betraying me.” Her nostrils flared, her breathing was labored. “But if this is what you think you have to do, get out, don’t bother coming back.”

Trembling, she collapsed onto a kitchen chair and buried her face in her hands. Her thin voice filtered between her fingers. “You can’t go, it’ll be the death of me.”

I sank into the chair opposite her. “Mama, why is it always only about you?”

She lifted her head slowly; fury sparked in her eyes. Suddenly she reached over and slapped my face. Shaken into a bitter cocktail, hurt and humiliation swelled and swirled inside me. I retreated in tears.

As my day of departure neared though, Mom seemed grudgingly resigned to my plans. A miracle in itself. In a last-ditch attempt at a truce, she even decided to cook an early Thanksgiving dinner for my final evening. David and Albert drove down from the City and Oma and Opa Zimmer, who lived in town, came over for my big sendoff. Oma, Mom and I worked all day on the feast. The smells of roasting turkey, herb stuffing and pumpkin pie permeated every corner of the house. It wasn’t until Dad had placed the platter of carved bird on the table and we’d sat down to eat that I realized one major item was missing: Mom.

I gaped at her empty chair until Dad’s too-cheerful voice distracted me. “Hannah, your mother and I expect long, newsy letters about your courses.”

“Hell with that,” David said. “After seeing the carnage she left in her wake at college, I can’t wait to hear about all the poor slobs she seduces.”

I growled at him. “Shut up, David. That’s a load of …” Out of the corner of my eye I glanced at Oma and Opa and refrained from finishing the sentence.

Opa chuckled knowingly at the exchange. Amusement played around Oma’s mouth. “Well, I’m sure you’ll have a great time, Hannah. Your German sets you in good stead. You won’t have any trouble communicating.” David howled with laughter. “Oma, I’m thinking she’ll do even better using her nonverbal communication skills.”

Albert gave me a sympathetic look then elbowed his brother. “She’s leaving town tomorrow. Give her a break for a change.” I narrowed my eyes and stabbed David with my index finger. “As if he cared. He’s going to miss not having me around to harass.”

Conversation lapsed as we dug into our feast. No one seemed to notice me pushing mashed potatoes and stuffing around my plate and into a mound of unappetizing mush. Knowing what I was doing to my mother had murdered my appetite. My stomach was already filled with a hot brick, the one that always materialized when I got upset, especially when Mom was slipping away from us. And this time it was my turn to be the bad guy.

While I struggled to chew and swallow, it hit me again just how risky my mission was, how it had already misfired and made things worse than they’d been. But it was too late to back out.

The next morning anticipation woke me early. I showered and pulled on loose jeans for the long flight. After getting the brush through my dark, knotted curls, I stared at myself in the mirror. Who would I be when I returned?