Manchester, 1944
“Look!”
Edward tore his eyes away from the parchment in his hands and followed Tzipporah’s gesture. In the apple tree above their heads, two brilliant red birds were trilling merrily, darting in and out of the leafy canopy. Edward smiled briefly and went back to his letter. Tzipporah rolled her eyes. Ever the same. He saw his friends last week, and still he wouldn’t put down Prescott’s letter for the world. Then again, she reminded herself wryly, I’m just the same when Millie and Clarice write to me.
“I’ve got splendid news,” said Edward, folding up the parchment and tucking it into the pocket of his Muggle-fashioned pants. “Prescott and Clarice are engaged.”
Tzipporah laughed aloud, brimming with happiness for her friends. “I knew it couldn’t be long. Prescott has been after her since his fourth year, and she’s been crazy about him since our first. When’s the wedding to be?”
“September,” said Edward, somewhat distantly. Tzipporah did not miss his distraction, and her heart jolted suddenly. Maybe today, finally, after weeks of waiting…
“I suppose that’s as soon as Clarice’s parents would allow,” said Tzipporah, still watching Edward carefully. “A three-month engagement is the proper thing, I suppose, but it seems a bit silly in their case. The Durmonds are awfully old-fashioned, don’t you think?”
Edward grunted noncommittally. He was gazing out over the trees and the river, his hazel eyes far-off and thoughtful. Tzipporah could not help looking too.
Manchester’s Heaton Park was more familiar to her now than any park in Vienna, for she and Edward had come here every summer since the wars began. In that time she had never once been home to Austria, or even heard news of her father. But these worries were few among the many she had endured in her time at Hogwarts.
Tzipporah’s years at school had grown steadily darker from the onset. With the coming of the wars came news of murders and madmen, disappearances and unexplained disasters, and not only in the Wizarding world. Less than half of the students seemed to care about the World War raging alongside their own, but the Muggleborns could not help but take notice. Phyllis Morely lost her father in the carnage of Normandy, and at almost the same time Patrick, Millie’s elder brother, fell at the hands of Grindelwald’s followers when he tried to help a halfblooded friend. Few students had remained unscathed by either or both of the wars. Tzipporah counted herself among the lucky to have heard nothing of her father; the hope that he still lived, slim as it was, was better than mourning.
But there had been more than outside wars to contend with. In Tzipporah’s sixth year and Edward’s seventh, the Chamber of Secrets had been opened. For months the school seemed close to an end, especially after a young Muggleborn girl was slain by the monster. Hogwarts was saved only when the Heir of Slytherin was discovered and expelled, although Dumbledore kept him on as a gamekeeper, which Tzipporah did not entirely understand. But then, who ever understood Dumbledore? The whole affair, on top of everything else Tzipporah had to worry over, had made sixth year a most straining one. And yet, despite all that, it was also Tzipporah’s favorite year, for it was in the spring of 1943 that she and Edward began their courtship.
Neither was really sure how it had happened. They had gone to Hogsmeade with a group, and ended up mysteriously alone in a sunny, secluded corner of the village. When they entered, they came as friends, but when they left, there had been some barely distinguishable change, some clicking into place of head and heart. They walked back to the castle hand in hand, and by suppertime everybody knew that the Head Boy and Zippie Stein were “going together”.
Tzipporah sighed, recalling that day fondly. Of course, Millie and Clarice had orchestrated their private corner in Hogsmeade; at the time she had wanted to hex them, but now she was unutterably thankful. She tried to keep her eyes on the twinkling of the River Irk that ran straight through the park, and the emerald green of the surrounding grass and trees, but she could not help looking sideways at Edward. If only he’d ask me now, I think I could fly without a broom, I’d be so happy.
But he won’t. Tzipporah’s sigh brought Edward’s mind out of the clouds and back to the reality of what he had told himself he would do this morning. And yet everything had seemed much easier over a plate of his mother’s poached eggs and toast. Now, with Tzipporah sitting beside him, unconscious of the beautiful twist of her curls, and the way the twinkle in her dark eyes both burned and froze him “ unconscious, in short, of how difficult it was for him not to kiss her now, in front of all the park-goers around them “ now, he felt like a second-year again, uncertain whether he would receive a smile or a jinx in response to his question.
I’ve just got to grit my teeth and do it, he told himself, putting a hand to his coat pocket, where a gentle lump indicated the offering waiting there. Of course she’ll say yes. Why wouldn’t she?
But the logical, reasonable voice in Edward’s head was drowned out by one much less assured. She’s just finished at Hogwarts. She’ll want to get a job. Isn’t she always going on about starting Auror training with me? There are so many things she’ll want to do before she gets married. And she’s just said she doesn’t like long engagements. She’ll refuse. I know she will.
Then, mercifully, Tzipporah’s voice broke through Edward’s tangled mess of thought. “Want to take a stroll by the water, like old times?”
Edward smiled. “Like old times, yes. Let’s go.”
They made cordial conversation about Prescott and Clarice’s upcoming wedding as they walked, neither truly engaged in the topic. For her part, Tzipporah was silently planning her own wedding (If I ever am to have one, she thought dully). Edward, his forehead creased, looked pale enough to be sick as the two halves of himself argued incessantly.
What kind of Auror will you make if you can’t even get down on one knee and propose? the cruel voice asked. What kind of Gryffindor are you, for that matter?
“It’s time to be heading back,” said Tzipporah sadly, watching the reflection of the cherry-colored sunset in the water. “Your parents will worry about us.”
“No, they won’t. They know what I came here to do.”
Edward took a deep breath, took the velvet box from his coat pocket, and fell to his knee before Tzipporah.
“Marry me?”
Tzipporah took Edward’s hand and pulled him to his feet, standing closer to him than she had ever dared before.
“Yes,” she murmured. Edward’s face split into a grin, and he nearly dropped the ring as he removed it from the velvet box and slid it onto Tzipporah’s finger.
“I just have one question,” said Tzipporah, relishing the way her shoulder felt pressed against Edward’s as they walked slowly up the path.
“What’s that?”
Tzipporah’s eyes glinted wickedly. “What took you so long?”
London, 1945
King’s Cross was as crowded as Tzipporah had ever seen it. Cries of welcome and wails of despair sliced the air like curses, paining Tzipporah beyond words. The woman behind her was laughing with joy as she embraced her emaciated husband, while a teenage boy sobbed not ten paces from her. A man, the one who had given him the bad news, was patting him on the shoulder, but Tzipporah knew he did not feel it. The person he had waited so long for, prayed and fasted for, would not come off any train. That may be me tomorrow, or today, thought Tzipporah, shivering.
She had been coming to the station every day for a week now, ever since Austria had been liberated by the Allies. With the arrival of every express from Vienna her heart beat wildly, only to settle into its usual drudging rhythm when her father did not emerge, tall and limping and alive, from the crowd. Some days Edward came with her, but that morning he had been called away on urgent Auror business that could not be put off. Tzipporah knew it was irresponsible of her to be taking so much time away from her own training, but it was no use trying to work when she knew her father could be thrust at any moment, dazed and alone, into the unknown streets of London.
“Excuse me, sir,” Tzipporah tapped a corpulent station guard on the shoulder, making him jump. “Do you know when the two-thirty train from Vienna will arrive?”
“Should be right soon, ma’am,” said the guard, checking his pocket-watch. “It were dee-layed a bit near Bristol by a falled tree, but it go’ through alright an’ it’s a-comin’ now, s’far as I know.”
“Thank you,” Tzipporah smiled and turned away to hide her excitement. Could it be today, after so many days?
Several minutes later a gleaming black engine pulled into platform seven and Tzipporah pushed her way through knots of people, hoping against hope that this time would not turned out like all the others, praying that her hopes would not prove false and foolish.
The cycle Tzipporah had learned by heart in the past week began again in the usual way; the doors of the train opened, and a line of frightened, half-starved foreigners poured into the dingy London light, blinking and clutching ragged suitcases or patched hats, or nothing at all. Then came the first cry, a cry of pure exultation, and a woman broke from the crowd of spectators and into the arms of a bushy-bearded man, who dropped his carpetbag and kissed her there before the bustling mob. Other reunions followed “ and then came the screams. News, passed in German words (Tzipporah had trouble understanding now, it had been so long) was spreading, news of who had been killed by Nazis and who by Austrians, who by bullet and who by starvation, who in the light of day and who beneath the shelter of guilty darkness. Tzipporah wanted to cover her ears against the keening moans, but instead she stood on her toes and scanned the faces of the people still straggling off the train.
And then she saw him, saw him, and knew it was him even beneath the grey in his beard that had never been there before, knew him even without his brown suit and red handkerchief, knew him simply because she could never not know. Tateh. He was here. He had survived.
“Tateh! Tateh!”
Tzipporah could not make her voice heard above the chaos of the station noise, but she fought her way forward, keeping her father’s face within sight, because she could not, would not, lose him again…
“Tateh!”
He had heard her. Slowly, as though he had not dared to believe it could be, Dr. Stein turned his head and met his daughter’s eyes for the first time in nine years.
“Tzipporah.”
Tzipporah could feel the tears on her cheeks as she hugged her father tightly, grimacing at the thinness of his arms and legs, the hollows in his face, the shadows lurking behind the joy in his eyes. But it will be all right, Tzipporah promised herself. I will take care of him, and he will get better and look better. Everything will be better. Now I will even have somebody to give me away at my wedding!
“Come, Tateh, I’ll take you back to my apartment and make you a good meal. Ach, you are so thin! I’ll make Klöße and maybe some tafelspitz, if I can find a kosher deli…”
“Meydeleh, I do not think my stomach can handle such rich cooking,” said Dr. Stein, smiling tiredly. “Perhaps broth with vegetables, and some fresh bread. And then a good long nap.”
“Of course, Tateh. Whatever you’d like. But there is one thing I will make that you must have at least one bite of.”
“And what is that?”
“Apfelstrudel.”
Dr. Stein laughed the long, crackling laugh that Tzipporah remembered. “Ah, how could I say no to apfelstrudel?”
Together Tzipporah and her father left King’s Cross, already speaking of the years they had passed in separation, sharing all the stores of memory they had tucked away for the day of their reunion. Behind them in the station lay misery and pain, but before them, spread across the city, grew a hundred chances, a thousand opportunities, a million dreams.
Vienna, 1961
It was home, and yet it had changed, as had everything. The war was over, but it had left scars. Tzipporah was not surprised to see that the Jewish quarter had been remodeled “ her father had warned her long ago what to expect “ and that the place where her house had stood was now a hat shop. The synagogue was a ruin, though the graveyard was intact; few pre-war buildings had been left unscathed by the Nazis. There was nothing familiar about Linke Weinzeile Street anymore. But an old pain throbbed in Tzipporah’s heart as she gazed out over the Danube canal. Still the memories of her childhood haunted her. She was sure they always would.
“Maybe it was a mistake coming back here,” said Edward, looking at his wife nervously. “Are you sure you’re all right, Tzipporah?”
“No, I’m not. But I needed to come back.” I needed to see it once. But more than that, I needed to share it with Edward. And with…
“Here, give me James.” Tzipporah held out her arms, and Edward placed their one-year-old son into them. James warbled and shook his fists as his mother held him up in the air, showing him her city. The child I never thought I could have, and the only child there is to be…he must understand his past, his heritage. It must not be lost.
“This is where you are from, mayn yingl. This is where your grandparents lived, and where they are buried.” Tzipporah could now smile at the thought of her parents: Mameleh, a mere whisper of a song in her ears, and Tateh, her beloved Tateh, who had died just a month before James’ birth. They survived only in a handful of photographs and Tzipporah’s memory. She and Edward and James would visit their graves after they left the canal. But just then Tzipporah could feel their spirits on the water, and she wanted James and Edward to feel them too.
“This doesn’t have to be the last time,” said Edward. “We can buy a house here, and visit in the summers, or during Christmas…”
Tzipporah shook her head, her mind made up. “There is nothing for me here anymore, hartse, you know that. Everyone I knew is gone. The city I knew has changed. I’ll always love it, but it isn’t like Hogwarts.” A small smile flitted across her face as she remembered the promise Dumbledore had made to her: You will grow to love it as much as Vienna. And she had. Hogwarts was steadfast and sturdy. It was like Avalon, shrouded in magical mist so that it did not change the way the rest of the world did. That was one place Tzipporah could always call home.
Darkness fell around the couple and their son as they stood on the bridge in silence. By the time the first stars glittered into being James was asleep in his mother’s arms. Glancing at his watch, Edward yawned pointedly.
“Very subtle,” laughed Tzipporah, kissing Edward on the cheek. “We can visit their graves tomorrow, I suppose, and Apparate back in the afternoon.”
“Whatever you like, dear,” agreed Edward sleepily. “But are you sure you don’t want to stay longer? You know the Auror office has given us two weeks leave.”
“I know. But I want to get back home. Clarice and Prescott have promised to come by and show us little Frank. And besides,” Tzipporah looked out over the city lights, and then over the canal, “I’ve seen all I need to see.”
Edward put an arm around his wife’s shoulders and drew her to him, hazel eyes bright. For a moment they swayed there, with the dark water flowing below them, and then they kissed, a sweet, lingering embrace that did not wake the baby in Tzipporah’s arms.
“Ready go?” asked Edward.
“Yes. It’s time.”
They walked across the bridge, the moonlight reflecting off the pendant around Tzipporah’s neck. There was no need to fear any longer.