John Donne: More than kisses, letters mingle souls.
February 4th, 1939
Berlin
Dear Steve,
I saw the Buck Rogers movie today. Thankfully it made its way through the German censorship wall and I was able to see it at a Berlin theater (I'm here to perform. Don't feel like talking about it). It made me so homesick, but the happy kind of homesick rather than the sad. It was nice to laugh. Reminded me of poring over those comics with you and Bucky when we were kids.
I have to say though, it never occurred to me before that the idea of crashing a dirigible into the north pole and surviving under the ice for 500 years is kind of unbelievable. Oh well. Someone needed to be around to defeat Killer Kane.
Thanks for asking after Jilí. She's doing okay. Doesn't talk much still, but she's really doubled down on helping our friends. She's one of those people who has to be doing something in their grief so they don't succumb to it. I help where I can, but my uncle's hold on me has been tighter lately.
Let me know if you saw the movie. It'd be nice to reminisce over old times.
Yours,
Alice.
February 21st, 1939
Brooklyn
Dear Alice,
I want to preface this by saying that I did not get into a fight, whatever Bucky will have you believe. I mean sure, I would've gotten into a fight if he didn't stop me, but the facts are what they are.
He's just annoyed that I tricked him. Anyway.
A few weeks ago I saw an advertisement in the paper for a rally at Madison Square Garden on the 20th, and then heard people talking about it – and how the mayor decided to let the rally go ahead. When the day came, I told Bucky I'd heard of a new dance club opened up in Midtown and wanted to go (really, that's on him for believing me).
Well, when I led him into the giant crowd outside Madison Square Garden, he realized what was up.
You see, there's a group in the US called the German Bund. They're pro-Nazi, and decided to hold a rally in New York on George Washington's birthday. (Remember I mentioned they were in New York last year, and got into a fight with some veterans?) They called it the "Pro American Rally". Obviously I wasn't there to join them, but the big crowd of protesters outside. Once Bucky stopped being angry at me he figured he was plenty angry enough at the Nazis to join the protest.
We didn't see much of the event itself since the police kept the protesters out, and I'm glad for it. All the Bund members were dressed up like the SS, and the few banners I saw were… well. You know what the Nazis have to say about the people they don't like. They played martial music as they waved American flags beside Nazi ones and did the Nazi salute. Apparently a Jewish boy leapt on stage at one point, but he was attacked and thrown out.
In the rally they sang a few German folk songs. We heard it outside, and I recognized some of the songs. But when you sang those songs they sounded like lullabies. These guys sang them like war cries.
Bucky and I shouted along with the rest of the much larger crowd of New Yorkers. I'm no stranger to protests, as you know. Some of these protesters had signs – my favorite was "Give me a gas mask, I can't stand the smell of Nazis". Thought you might like that one.
Things got a bit outta hand toward the end. A protester punched a police horse in the face to get away from the officer riding it, and when the Nazis came out at the end we all made a rush for the police line.
I managed to get through since I was shorter than mostly everyone else, and I went right for a guy carrying a giant swastika flag. I wanted to tear it out of his hands. But Bucky got through after me and dragged me back before I could get to any of them. Though I think he was more reluctant about dragging me back then than about any of the other fights he's pulled me away from.
Some Nazis got punched. Guess I'll have to take that as consolation.
Yours,
Steve
PS: It's just occurred to me I'm sending this into German-occupied Austria. If you're reading this, Nazi censors, suck an egg.
February 24th, 1939
Vienna
Steve!
How can you constantly be telling me to be careful but then charge at the first swastika you see like an angry bull? (not that I don't enjoy the mental picture).
I heard about that Bund rally, they're all very excited about it over here. What with Hitler opening a sixth concentration camp, it's all 'progress' here.
I'm glad you didn't get yourself hurt, give Bucky a hug for me. He's earned it. Next time, just let him know there's an anti-Nazi rally and he'll probably come along of his own free will. He's made his feelings perfectly clear in his letters to me.
Got to go, I've got a performance in thirty minutes.
Yours,
Alice
PS: Suck eggs, censors! (There aren't actually any censors, at least not yet. I got introduced to the postmaster a few months ago and with some careful questioning figured out that they're not reading the mail. Yet.)
April 19th, 1939
Harlem
Dear Alice,
Quit worrying about me, I'm doing fine in school! I'll send you my report card if you don't believe me. I'm eleven now, I can take care of myself.
Molly played that new record of yours the other day, I really liked it. I still remember bits of German so I understood some of it, which was nice. You've got a real nice voice. It was good to hear it again.
Can you send me more photos from Vienna? I liked the last lot you sent me, and they're still on my wall. It's weird to think that we used to live in the same house, but now I'm in this tenement apartment in Harlem and you're in some kind of crazy mansion in Vienna.
Do you think I could come visit you, maybe when I'm older?
I gotta go, Billy Rockwell's got a new baseball bat so we're going to go try it out down at the park.
Bye for now,
Tom
May 10th, 1939
Brooklyn
Dear Alice,
I don't need to ask if you've seen the movie I'm about to tell you about, because I'm 100% sure they won't have screened it in Germany.
It's called 'Confessions of a Nazi Spy'. Can you guess what it's about?
Most other films I've seen have danced around the topic of Germany, but this one goes after them hard – it called the Nazi party dangerous. Which shouldn't be news, but this was the first movie to say it.
It's got people all riled up, predictably, and I hear Mr Hitler across the pond isn't very happy.
We gotta get you a screening of it when you get back, somehow. Scratch that, a screening of every movie you missed. Those German censors have got no taste.
Yours,
Steve.
Excerpt from '11 Influential Films You've Never Heard Of' by Will Chester(2015):
6. 'Confessions of a Nazi Spy'. Produced in 1939, this was the first Hollywood film to blatantly criticize the Nazi party and their ideology. Its plot is loosely based on a 1938 riot against the German Bund by veterans in New York City, and a Nazi espionage case in the same year.
Though the film failed at the box office, it won the National Board of Review Award for Best Film that year, and fuelled a serious national conversation about the gravity of the Nazi Party's policies and their impact on the United States.
May 24th, 1939
Brooklyn
Dear Alice,
I'm writing again, without much hope, to ask you to come home.
You said that things are getting more serious – more munitions factories being built, the navy expanding, more men recruited to the army. You said yourself that almost half of the Jews in Vienna have left.
We've been following things closely in the news here, and they say that war might be on the way. If not for America, then definitely for Germany. Bucky and I still aren't sure – I don't reckon anyone wants another war. But Germany's been annexing all the small areas that no one cares about around it, and the other day the Germans signed an alliance with Italy. If it does come to war, I don't see how you can stay and keep helping. That's a whole other level of danger. Even if you stop helping people, no war is safe.
You should come home to Brooklyn, far away from all that. You'd be safe here. I know you want to protect people, but there's only so much you can do – and there's people who need help back here at home. You could bring Jilí. Maybe you could be an advocate here, tell people what's going on in Germany and Austria. They'd listen to you.
Please think about it.
Yours,
Steve
May 28th, 1939
Vienna
Dear Steve,
I'm sorry. I can't.
For one thing my uncle would never let me go. But even if he did, I wouldn't go. I can hardly explain it, but I know I'm not done. Jilí needs me, though she'd never admit it, and so do our friends. I can't leave them.
I will be as safe as I can, and I've learned how to be careful.
I'm still not sure that it will come to war. Nationalism is at an all time high here, but no one wants a war like the last one. I think the Germans might strike out, find the world less easy to conquer than they imagined, and then slide back inwards. Things will change here. They have to.
If it does come to war, I know I can't ask you not to enlist. So I'll ask you now to take one goddamn minute and think. Think about what you're throwing yourself into, think about the consequences. Think about what I'd say. Then decide. I think that's the most I'll get you to agree to, so I'll leave it there.
I'll offer you the same promise.
Yours,
Alice.
June 15th, 1939
Vienna
Dear Steve,
So, I graduated today. I'm now a first-class honors graduate of the Austrian Imperial Academy of Music and the Performing Arts. I learned a lot there, but I'm glad to be leaving. So much has changed since I first walked through those doors. My instructors were actually much more palatable than my uncle's friends, but even the academy has changed along with the rest of the country. My favorite instructors left, the rest have joined in the patriotic fervor.
I've been in Vienna three years now, but it feels like a lifetime.
Yours,
Alice.
August 24th, 1939
Brooklyn
Dear Alice,
We're doing alright, money's a little tight at the moment but we've had worse. Bucky's sisters are able to get some work which helps them out, and I've picked up a couple more commissions.
Buck and I reckoned we had enough money yesterday to go see a movie (remember when the three of us used to scrape together our pennies?). The film was really great, though I doubt it'll make it to your neck of the woods. It's based on that 'Wizard of Oz' book, did you ever read it?
Bucky's been trying to figure out which of Dorothy's friends (there's a scarecrow who wants a brain, a tin man who wants a heart, and a lion who wants courage) the three of us resemble most. I don't imagine it'll be very flattering either way.
(Update: He's decided I'm the scarecrow who needs a brain, all because I helped Mrs Calloway cart her groceries upstairs without getting Bucky to do it for me.)
(Second update: He's decided he wants to be the Wizard).
Just read the paper; apparently the Nazis have signed a non aggression agreement with the Soviet Union – that's probably a good thing, right?
Yours,
Steve.
Alice is Dorothy.
And that was the last of the 'Letters Across the Ocean' series! Next chapter will land on Wednesday as usual (Christmas for me!), and after that the chapter schedule will roll back to one a week. Don't forget to review!
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