she had said one evening when Greta came for dinner. “We’re all poor these days.”
“You’re not,” Greta said pointedly, gesturing left and right to indicate Kerstin’s lovely home.
“I’m a civil servant,” Kerstin replied airily. “I pay for my comfort by enduring endless tedium in a stifling office. Anyway, who knows how much longer I’ll hold on to my job with the Brownshirts marching around demanding that women stay home to cook dinner and make babies. Let’s celebrate while we can. What’s the alternative?”
Greta had no good answer for that, so she accepted the invitation.
When she arrived at ten o’clock on the last night of the year, the party was well under way. Jazz played on the phonograph, bursts of laughter punctuated lively conversations, and scents of perfume and cigarettes intertwined with woodsmoke from the hearth. She had scarcely removed her hat and coat when several acquaintances she had not seen in ages called out greetings or crossed the room to embrace her. Her dread swiftly vanished as one friend poured her a beer and another dragged her off to introduce her to a group of aspiring artists. Kerstin had not exaggerated; several of her old friends were gainfully employed, but more ruefully admitted that they too were barely making ends meet. They cracked wry jokes about taking in waistlines and patching the patches on worn-out shoes, and they shared advice about the best shops to find cheap but edible cuts of meat and day-old bread for mere pennies. And yet Greta sensed—and suspected they did not—that they perceived their similar straitened circumstances very differently. She was a metalworker’s daughter, accustomed to poverty; these children of architects and dentists considered it a bemusing novelty. They took for granted that their situation was only temporary, and that the money would flow their way again when the economy improved. Greta knew that anyone could be one illness, one estrangement, one job loss away from utter ruin.
Sometime later, Kerstin found Greta in the crowd and steered her into the dining room, where her mouth watered at the sight of the wonderful spread and she grew dizzy taking in the savory aromas of lentil soup, roast pork with apples, and sauerkraut—finely chopped, the first mouthful revealed, mildly flavored, and thickened with barley. She polished off her first serving, had just finished her beer, and was unabashedly loading up her plate a second time when Kerstin sailed past with a tray of Pfannkuchen. “Felix is at the fireplace making Feuerzangenbowle if you need something to wash that down with,” she called over the din.
“Don’t mind if I do,” Greta replied, but then the name registered. “Felix Henrich from university?”
Kerstin laughed. “Who else?”
Immediately Greta set off to find him, nibbling from her carefully balanced plate as she worked her way through the crowd. She found him at the fireside attending a black kettle suspended over the flames by an iron hook. Steam rose as Felix stirred the mixture with a long wooden spoon, the delicious aromas of red wine, the spicy notes of cinnamon, allspice, cardamom, and the sweet, fruity fragrances of lemon and orange wafting on the air. He was almost comically homely, small of stature, with jug ears and an enormous Adam’s apple, but he was a brilliant scholar, one of the best in their class, and one of the kindest, most generous people Greta had ever met. From university he had gone on to law school and immediately thereafter had been hired at the most prestigious law firm in Berlin. Greta had heard that he had married the beautiful daughter of one of the founding partners and had two delightful young children. No one deserved such happiness more than Felix.
She set down her plate, drew closer to the hearth, and spoke his name in an undertone. His face lit up at the sight of her. “Greta!” he shouted, dropping the spoon into the kettle, seizing her hand, and pumping it vigorously. “I had heard you were back in Berlin. How good it is to see you! How did you like America?”
“I liked it very much,” she said, pulling up a chair near his.
“Felix, the punch!” someone exclaimed.
“Oh, yes, yes.” Rolling up his sleeve, Felix carefully reached into the kettle and grasped the end of the spoon, careful not to touch the sides of the pot or the simmering liquid. “You must tell me all about it. You were in Wisconsin, yes?”
“That’s right,” said Greta, pleased that he remembered. As he tended the punch, she