Raymond felt something dark and heavy drop away from his mood. Drop physically away from his body, from the feel of it. He had been carrying it for longer than he realized. He felt buoyant without it, almost as though he were in danger of floating away.
She’ll be okay, he thought. She’ll be okay after all.
“So where do you want to go?”
“New York Harbor,” she said.
“What part of it?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“We could ride the subway to Battery Park. Take the ferry over to Ellis Island.”
“No! Definitely not to Ellis Island. I just want to visit that shore.”
“Which shore, though?”
“The Battery is fine. That is all well and good. But no ferry ride. No Ellis Island.”
“So, you must have been here before,” Raymond said, spotting a bench that had just been vacated.
He hurried to it and placed her cane across it to save it for them. Then he slowly walked her over to sit down.
The morning was brisk for spring, with a strong wind. It was a little cold, Raymond thought. He thought the cold was perhaps why that couple, who had not been wearing jackets, had moved along and left the bench to them. It was one in a line of benches closest to the iron railing at the water’s edge.
The benches had no backs, so Raymond and Mrs. G sat forward, huddled over themselves in the damp cold.
“I have been here before, yes,” she said. “The first time I was here was in 1938. I was eleven years old. My family and I came into New York Harbor on a ship to Ellis Island. That was the first I saw it.”
Raymond fell silent and waited to see if she cared to say more.
“You are being awfully quiet,” she said after a time.
“It’s just that . . . you never told me anything about your past. You didn’t seem to want to talk about it.”
“Today I will talk about it,” she said.
But for a few moments, nobody talked about anything.
“It was very different back then,” she said. “In many ways. But in some ways the same. The statue of course is the same. Can you see the statue from where we sit, Raymond?”
“Oh yeah. Good view of it from here.”
“And the sound of the boat horns. That is much the same, though I am sure the boats look more modern. The sea air and the wind, that never changes. I remember that so well from the whole voyage. I do think the harbor smelled better back then, though. Not so much pollution.”
“You really remember all the details from when you were eleven?”
“Oh yes. I have very detailed memories. Only . . . sometimes I wonder. You have the memories, and you go over and over them in your mind. And after a time I wonder if I am remembering the actual event or just remembering the memories.”
They fell silent for a moment. Seabirds wheeled over their heads, calling out strange sounds. Raymond thought they were strange, anyway.
“You saw things back then you would not see today,” she said. “Masted schooners were still docked, and the skyline was different. Many tall buildings, yes, but I remember they all had smoke or steam pouring up from them. They heated the buildings differently back then. All brick, they were. Not steel and glass. Oh, they had windows, yes. But they were not made entirely of windows as they are these days.”
“You lived in New York almost your whole life,” he said after a time. He did some quick math in his head. “Eighty-one years. Didn’t you ever come back here?”
“Oh yes. A handful of times. But I have not for a long time. Maybe twenty years. And it’s funny, but I don’t remember much from the later visits. I remember mostly that first time.”
Another moment of silence, but it felt peaceful to Raymond. She was going to tell him something that would help him make sense of her world and her reactions. He could feel it. But there was nothing he needed to do. It would come in its own time, and that time would be soon.
As if hearing his thoughts, she said, “What I am about to tell you I have told to no one except Rolf, my late husband. My family of course knew, because they were there, but they are all gone now. I am the only one left. I never even told Luis, though now I very much wish I had.”
He waited. He did not dare speak.
“You know your world history well,” she said. “Don’t you?”
“Pretty well, I think. Yeah.”
“Good. So . . . I was born in Germany in 1927. And I have already told you I came to America by boat in 1938.”
She didn’t speak for a moment. She seemed to be wanting something from him. Some reaction.