The Incidental Spy

Chapters 7 & 8

Chapter Seven

1937- 1938— Chicago

The day Lena and Karl married was a warm, breezy day in June, 1937. The tiny wedding at KAM Isaiah Israel synagogue in Hyde Park included less than a dozen guests: Ursula and Reinhard, the graduate students in the Physics Department, a secretary, Bonnie, from the Math Department with whom Lena was friends, and Professor Compton and his wife. Lena had bought a white dress on sale at Marshall Field's, and Bonnie had helped her make a veil. But what she loved most were her white sandals with rhinestone bows, which sparkled in the light, making her feel as though she was floating above the ground.

After the ceremony, Ursula and Reinhard invited everyone to their house for wedding cake and champagne. Ursula surprised Lena with a marzipan cake from Lutz's, the German bakery; her aunt had gone all the way to the North side to pick it up. Later that evening, Karl's friends took them to a special performance of the Benny Goodman Trio at the Congress Hotel, and they kicked up their heels until the wee hours. Lena couldn't have asked for a more perfect day. If only her parents had been there to see it.

***

A few months later, as they walked to the quad from their apartment near 57th and Dorchester, Lena—now Mrs. Stern—held up her hand, watching her wedding ring flash this way and that in the morning sun. She did that a lot now. To most people, it was just a modest gold band, but to her it was as valuable as the whole of the recently built Fort Knox.

She turned to her husband. "Thank you, Karl."

"For what?"

"For everything. You made me whole again. I finally belong."

He smiled and reached for her hand. They walked a few steps in silence. Then, "I have a confession to make," she said.

"What, my darling?"

"I wish..." she hesitated. "Sometimes I just want to forget what's going on in Europe. I just want to think about our life here. Does that make me a terrible person?"

He squeezed her hand. "I do not think so. I do it as well sometimes."

"Doesn't it make you feel guilty?"

"I don't let it. And, I take heart that I am working in a field that could end the suffering there."

"But that's so far in the future... and so unsure, given how powerful the Nazis have become."

He took her arm. "Perhaps. Perhaps not. And, don't forget, Lena my darling, you are helping, too."

"I'm not doing anything except typing and filing and writing letters."

He touched her lips with his index finger. "Don't say that. Your work allows us to concentrate on our research. And that research might well give America a valuable tool one day." He leaned over and kissed her. Lena wanted to collect moments like this, if only to store them in life's album of happy times.

So Lena tried to ignore the steady drip of bad news from Europe. It worked for a while, but like a leaky faucet, the bad news was unrelenting. Hungary was pressured to join the Axis; reportedly, Jews outside Budapest were being rounded up. Lena prayed that Josef stayed safe. She wouldn't let herself think about her parents, trying to persuade herself that whether they were at a labor camp, or had been sent to what were now called concentration camps, she was in America, and America was interested in America, not Europe.

America was focused on rebuilding its economy and staying out of the war. Of course, people like Henry Ford disparaged Jews, as did Father Coughlin, a Catholic priest whose weekly radio program drew millions of listeners. She would turn off the radio when his show began.