Settings that Inform

 The encounter with Sparta that changed everything. 

Even someone who has never studied Sparta or read a single book about it has images of Ancient Sparta transmitted through our language alone.  “Spartan” is an adjective used to denote “severe,” “plain,” and “austere.” Laconic speech is “terse,” “concise” and “economical.” The most rudimentary and fleeting brush with Sparta in literature almost invariably includes reference to rigid discipline, disdain for luxury, self-sacrifice and endurance of hardship.

The more one looks into Spartan society, the quicker he/she is confronted by references to a childhood of deprivation in which one had to steal to get enough to eat and was allowed only one garment per year. The boys, we learn, had to cut down the river reeds with their bare hands or the help of a tool which is dismissed as practically worthless, and then sleep upon these instead of real beds. Worse, they had to live practically in the wild, exposed to the elements without shelter or proper clothes.  Books like Gates of Fire describe horrendous beatings to which Spartan boys were apparently subjected for any tiny infraction of the rigid rules of acceptable behavior.

Nor are youths the only Spartans whom, we are led to believe, suffered deprivation. This was a society, according to most sources, where women were prohibited from wearing jewelry or even taking pride in their weaving. Indeed, all gold and silver was banned, and so could adorn nothing - not even the temples of the Gods.  The houses, we are told, were not painted (as else where in the Ancient world), and if one believes the oft quoted “sayings of Spartan kings” they did not even hew their house beams into regular square posts, but left them raw and untreated – one imagines crude timber as in a log cabin. Meanwhile, the young men lived in barracks (notoriously grim places in any society!) and for their entire lives ate their meals at men’s clubs where the cuisine, we soon learn, was infamous throughout the ancient world for its lack of sophistication and variety.

In short, it sounds like a society barely surviving in a hostile environment, a society which had made a virtue out of necessity. 

And then I went to Sparta... 

 

As I drove down the modern road from Tripoli (or Tegea as I prefer to think of it) toward Sparti (Sparta) there came a moment when coming around a bend I caught the first glimpse of the Taygetos mountains. The view took my breath away.  I could hardly concentrate on the winding road for straining to get another glimpse of those spectacular, snow-capped mountains. When after another twenty minutes of driving the valley of the Eurotas spread out before me, it was a revelation. My image of Sparta – Ancient Sparta and all that Sparta implied – was transformed in a single instant.

The valley of the Eurotas is anything but barren! It is quite the reverse. It is green and fertile and stunningly beautiful -- like riches cupped in the hands of the gods. From the blooming oleander to the wild iris, the valley is a garden. The orange orchards stretch as far as the eye can see, brazenly advertising not only the abundance of soil and sun but of water as well. Most spectacular of all, the Eurotas valley is one of those few places on earth that offers the sensually stimulating sight of palm trees waving against a back-drop of snow-capped mountains.

I asked myself: has Laconia perhaps changed dramatically in the last 2,500 years? Was it poor when the harsh, economical, self-disciplined Spartan society took root in its -- then -- sparse and almost barren soil?  Does it bloom now artificially because of modern fertilizers and irrigation?

If we are to believe the ancient historians, no. Herodotus speaks of Sparta’s “good soil”.[i] Thucydides describes the entire Peloponnese (with the exception of Arcadia) as the “richest part of Hellas.”[ii] It is when speaking of Athens, that Thucydides draws attention to “the poverty of her soil.”[iii]

So the fertility and abundance of the valley has not changed since Ancient times any more than the shape of the mountains that enclose it. 

 

But if this rich valley was the seat of Sparta, then Spartan austerity and deprivation did not come from necessity! If Sparta’s land was rich, fertile and productive, then it could have enabled the highest standard of living available in the ancient world -- at least to the always modest number of elite Spartiates. In short, if Sparta was as austere a society as it is depicted in modern times, then that austerity was self-imposed.

Is it reasonable to imagine that a people raised in the midst of wealth and beauty had no appreciation for either? Or is the very austerity of Spartan society as mythical as the thin soil described in modern novels about Sparta?

 

I started to wonder if our images of a rigid, harsh and brutally disciplined society were a distortion or exageration? A fractured image? A misunderstanding based on ignorant, or prejudiced foreign reporting? Imagine what American society looked liked through the eyes of the Soviets or the Taliban!

That was when I started to seriously research Ancient Sparta, focusing on ancient sources, primary sources, archaeology and and scholarly works. I soon discovered a different world from that of Hollywood, Stephen Pressfield and the global fascist movement that has expropriated so many Spartan symbols. 

 

Following extensive research, participation in scholarly fora, and personal contact with some of the leading modern scholars of Ancient Sparta, I have come to believe that popular modern images of Sparta are based largely on inadequate, hostile and sometimes purely fanciful source material.  So I set out to describe a different Sparta, a Sparta consistent with the ancient sources, but enhanced by common sense interpolation and an understanding of human nature. On the assumption that exaggerations and myths often have a kernel of truth, I did not turn Sparta into paradise of luxury and self-indulgence, but sought instead to provide logical explanations of where the legends might have had their roots in a normal, if unique, society. This Spartan world is depicted in my six novels set in Ancient Sparta, which have been praised by scholars for their plausibility and contribution to an understanding of the real Sparta.   

 

---

[i] Herodotus, Book I.66, p.26.

[ii] Thucydides, Book I.2, p.36.

[iii] Ibid.

Find out more about my novels set in Ancient Sparta at: https://helenapschrader.net/ancient-sparta/

                                 

Settings that Inspire Inspiration

 Inspirational Kantara!

 

Personally, the Island of Cyprus and most especially the above pictured castle of Kantara was the setting which had the most profound influence on my writing. An unplanned trip to Cyprus (my husband and I had booked a trip to Egypt but because of a terrorist attack had to rebook our holiday at short notice), inspired years of further research and travel culminating in six published and three unpublished novels. The most obvious of these is The Last Crusader Kingdom.

 

I was immediately intrigued by Richard the Lionheart's sojourn on the island, but then became fascinated by the dramatic opposition of the Cypriot barons to the tyrannical Frederick II Hohenstaufen. I wrote a series of novels about Cyprus during the civil war in the early 13th century, but doubting the appetite of the reading public for such an obscure topic I never sought a publisher.

Several years later, the release of the film "The Kingdom of Heaven" re-ignited my interest in this period of history. Suspecting Hollywood might not have gotten all the facts right, I started to research Balian d'Ibelin and discovered that the historical Balian was considerably more interesting than the Hollywood Balian. I became inspired to write my Jerusalem Trilogy, set in the Holy Land during the end of the twelfth century. Yet having come to the end of Balian's known life I was confronted by an alluring mystery. How was it possible that the ever incompetent Guy de Lusignan had managed to pacify an island the Knights Templar had given up on? How had the disastrous King of Jerusalem become the wise and successful ruler of Cyprus. 

The mystery took me back to Cyprus and indeed a new and exciting hypothesis, which is the basis of The Last Crusader Kingdom.  Not only that, but the story of Balian's eldest son, the historically more famous John d'Ibelin, Lord of Beirut, had its roots in Cyprus too. And so I returned -- to Kantara again and again. 

Find out more about the novels set in Cyprus at: https://helenapschrader.net/crusades-era/

                                                      

Settings aren't just Background

When speaking about novels, most readers focus on the plot and characters and to a lesser extent on the themes. Yet the  settings of novels are important, too. Fantasy novels and science fiction, for example, create entire worlds, while even novels set in contemporary reality have clear settings that influence their impact. The same murder mystery has a different edge when set in Paris than New York. A romance has a different feel if the lovers are ranchers in Wyoming rather than bankers on Wall Street etc. Vivid settings enliven and enrich any book. Yet in the case of historical fiction, settings are more than background: they shape the entire book. Let me explain.

 

 

The settings of historical fiction novels don't just create atmosphere, and they also create 'facts.' In a book set in ancient Rome no one can travel by plane or place a telephone call. In short, the 'setting' determines the options the characters have for movement and communication. The setting establishes parameters for climate, the type of clothing worn, languages spoken, prevailing religious beliefs, social customs, the status of women and so on. While that is true in contemporary fiction too, it is not necessary to explain a setting that is familiar to the reader.

By contrast, in the historical fiction, setting is so important that it is the single most important factor used for classifying books within the genre. Historical fiction books are categorized first and foremost by the time period in which they are set and then the geographic region. We speak of "a novel set in the American civil war" or "a novel of Ancient Rome" or perhaps "a novel set against the tumultuous backdrop of the War of the Roses." In all cases, the setting of the novel defines it before we dig deeper to discover if this is a romance, a war-story, or a mystery. 

The other way in which settings are particularly important to historical fiction is that for most readers the setting will be unfamiliar. In a novel set in contemporary times, an author can say: " He stopped at  MacDonald's for a Big Mac, and then ...." No further explanation is needed. For a novel set in Ancient Egypt, the author is going to have to describe what a quick snack looked like and where it could be obtained -- or maybe do without that little episode altogether in order not to bore the reader.... A novel set in modern times can say: "He worked in a open-space office with tiny cubicles" and the reader already sees the environment. Most readers, however, cannot immediately picture the scene if the novelist says: "He worked in the Scriptorium of the abbey."

Given the importance of settings to the genre, it hardly surprising that historical novelists are particularly influenced by settings before they even set out to write. Settings can inspire, inform and enrich an author -- enabling them to share that experience with the readers. I will be discussing each of these functions in the weeks ahead.

My novels are set in three distinct historical eras: Ancient Sparta, the era of the Crusades and the mid-20th Century, Find out more at: https://helenapschrader.net

                                                                 

Characters in "Cold Victory" : Georgina's Girls

 I want to end the introductions to the characters in "Cold Victory" with this collective introduction to "Georgina's Girls." Georgina Moran, familiar to many of my readers from "Moral Fibre," has come to Berlin to teach at the British School. In addition to her official duties, she organizes a joint British-German school choir and then offers sewing classes to girls who want to learn. The American nurse Anna volunteers to give the girls a medical check-up because many have had no access to medical care in years. 

The girls represent the tens of thousands of teenage girls in Berlin at this time.

 

 In this excerpt, an inadvertent remark triggers an explosion of confessions that lay bare the burden these girls carry within them.

 “But what if you didn’t have a choice?” Petra asked in a strained voice that made Georgina look over at her in concern. Petra rarely spoke up. Usually, she just trailed unhappily in Dietlinde, Gisela and Ulrike’s wake.

“A choice about what?” Anna asked, having lost the thread of the conversation.

“About having sex,” Petra burst out, her face flushing.

A hush fell over the whole room and Georgina’s instinct was to change the subject, but Anna confronted the question head-on. “Especially when you didn’t have a choice, Petra. A man can force you to have sex with him, but he can’t force you not to go to school, or not to get job training, or not to work.”

“The f**king bastards don’t care what our names are, much less give a f**king damn what we do with our lives after they’ve got what they paid for!” Gisela erupted with an explosion of unexpected fury, adding bitterly, “It’s the rest of society that won’t give us a chance!”

Dietlinde said something to her in German which triggered an even more violent reaction. With a sharp push, Gisela thrust Dietlinde away and screamed at her in German.

Ulrike and Hannah tried to intervene, but that only made things worse. Gisela shouted and screamed in German, eliciting equally vociferous answers from Ulrike, Dietlinde and Hannah. Like a mini cyclone, emotions spiralled out of control.

After recovering from their shock, Georgina and Anna tried to intervene, but Gisela swung on them, shouting in English, “My father wanted me to shoot myself! He gave me his pistol — butt-first. He didn’t even give me time to pull up my panties! I was trembling and bleeding and I wanted to be sick, and he just jabbed a pistol butt in my face!”

Georgina stopped breathing and Anna froze.

Gisela continued, “My mother shoved him aside and bundled me out of the house — but he shouted after me not to come back. He said I was dead to him — whether I had the ‘decency’ to kill myself or not!” She turned and focused on Anna, who had had the temerity to suggest she had control over her fate. “I live with my aunt now, but she has three children and no job. She’ d have nothing if I didn’t earn enough cigarettes and chocolate for her to trade on the black market. At least she’s thankful for it.”

Like puss pouring from a punctured boil, the other stories followed.

“My mother says I don’t belong in school,” Ulrike announced, her teeth clamped. “She says I’d earn more money working all week rather than just on the weekends. But why should I put out for four or five GIs every day so she can buy herself gin? She steals half the nylons they give me anyway, and the cigarettes, of course. But she’s a ‘lady,’ and I’m just a whore!” She grabbed a cigarette and lit up, a grim expression on her face.

“After the Ivans had me, the concierge cornered me and forced himself on me as well. He said since no decent man would ever marry me, I had no right to ‘put on airs’ and ‘pretend to be a nice girl,’” Beate lashed out.

“German men are the worst bastards of all!” Hannah concurred bitterly. “First, they let the Ivans do what they liked with us, and then they call us traitors for sleeping with ‘the enemy’!”

“They didn’t all abandon us!” Petra protested, surprising the others. “My father tried to stop the Ivans. He stood up to them, but they shot him three times in the stomach. Then they raped me while he writhed in pain and bled to death.” Petra burst into tears as she cried out, "Maybe if I hadn’t resisted, he’d still be alive!”  

Georgina recoiled in horror; she could identify with this story more than the others because she could easily imagine her father trying to protect her. The horror of his pain and death on top of the violence of gang rape was unfathomable. She took Petra into her arms and tried to comfort her.

But Dietlinde wasn’t finished, “All good German men were dead!” she declared. “The ones left alive either surrendered or ran away!”

“They surrendered to the Ivans but still think they have a right to our bodies for free because the victors have already had them,” Ulrike spat out contemptuously, and her words were greeted by a flurry of agreement that tapered off into silence. Petra gently pulled herself out of Georgina’s arms, wiping the tears away from her face with her hands.

The short but intense outburst of confessions, like a violent thunderstorm, ended as suddenly as it started. But instead of clearing the air, Georgina felt the tension simmering. She knew that her nerves were too frayed to cope with any more revelations. She was going to need to reflect on what she’d learnt today for many hours and days to come, and she wanted her father’s advice too.  She looked toward the clock and announced in relief, “Look at the time! We must pack away our things and lock up.”

With exaggerated alacrity to cover their embarrassment, the girls busied themselves putting their unfinished sewing into the lockers at the back of the class and donning their old over-clothes. Meanwhile, Georgina rubbed out the blackboard, and Anna wrapped herself in her cape. When the last of the girls had filed out, Georgina switched off the lights and followed them down the stairs. Outside they waved goodbye “until tomorrow,” and the girls walked in a group toward the nearest underground station, while Georgina and Anna climbed into the headmaster’s car, which he had put at Georgina’s disposal.  

After a few moments of silence, Georgina remarked, “Well, that was educational.”

“And sobering,” Anna agreed. She paused before adding, “There’s something else you ought to know.” Georgina waited, warned by Anna’s tone to expect something unpleasant. “First, Silvie is more than four months pregnant. Second, Gertrud, who was nine when the city fell to the Reds, is the only virgin, and finally, seven of the girls have VD.”

Georgina caught her breath. She thought back to when she had been their age, attending an Anglican boarding school for girls. If even one of them had not been a virgin, it would have been a scandal, and she’d never heard of VD. She thought back, too, to her first encounter with Herr Dr Altenheyn. He’d emphasised that the Kaiser Wilhelm School was an ‘elite’ school. The parents of these pupils, he’d claimed, were bureaucrats, professionals and academics. Perhaps that was the reason they were so incapable of coping with their daughters’ fall from grace?

She shook her head and admitted, “I heard about the Russian rapes before I came, but everyone talked about them as though they were history. It was something terrible that had happened ‘in the war,’ rather like the bombing and the concentration camps. No one seemed to understand that those rapes are still warping lives. It must be the same all across the city.”

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Find out more about the Bridge to Tomorrow series, the awards it has won, and read reviews at: https://helenapschrader.net/bridge-to-tomorrow/

    

 

 

Characters of "Cold Victory" : Anna Savage

 Anna is former US Army nurse recruited by the private British air ambulance company, Air Ambulance International, as a flight nurse on medical evacuation out of blockaded Berlin. Her role may be secondary, but nevertheless important.

 

In this excerpt, we learn about her background and how she chanced upon this extraordinary opportunity. The story of her grandfather is described is based on a historical incident that took place in Georgia in May 1919.

“Aunt Flora?” Anna called out as the screen door chinked shut behind her. “Aunt Flora? It’s me. Anna.” The spacious kitchen with its big, wooden counters and endless cupboards stretching along the back of Judge Warren’s neo-classical mansion in Eastman, Georgia had been the realm of Aunt Flora for as long as Anna could remember.

Aunt Flora had first brought Anna here when she was eight years old. That was about two years after her mother had left her father because he’d beaten her once too often. Her mother had been trying to make enough money to keep herself and her daughter in clothes and food by working at a diner where truckers stopped. They lived in a shack out back, without electricity or running water. Then, out of the blue, Aunt Flora had arrived and there had been a terrible fight between the sisters. In the end, Aunt Flora stuffed a pathetic pile of worn-out things — all Anna owned — into a cotton sack and brought Anna to Eastman on the bus.

At the time, Anna had never before been in a town with streetlights and rows of pretty houses with big green lawns. Eastman had awed her even before Aunt Flora marched her up to the big, red brick house with towering white pillars and a chandelier hanging over the porch — much less introduced her to a white lady who smelled of flowers. The latter was Miss Josephine, the wife of Judge Warren, and Aunt Flora’s employer.

When Anna turned fourteen, she was one of just three girls allowed to go to the private high school for coloured people. Anna’s grades were so good that Aunt Flora wanted to pay the fees out of her own pocket, but Miss Josephine wouldn’t let her and made the payments instead. Miss Josephine came to Anna’s graduation too, the only white woman in the whole auditorium. After she graduated, Miss Josephine helped her get into nurse’s training, too.

The adult Anna was thankful but not beholden to Miss Josephine. She’d worked hard to get those good grades, to qualify as a nurse and to serve her country.

“That you, Anna?” Aunt Flora called, coming in from the front of the house.

“Yes! Miss Josephine sent for me. Do you know why?”

Flora gave her a look that said she was in big trouble. “Ah don’t know why Miss Josephine sent for you Anna Elizabeth, but Ah can sure as blazes guess! Which is why you are goin’ to sit you’self down at that table and get you’ ears blistered.” Anna might be 26 years old, a qualified nurse and living in her own apartment over on Elm Street, but she respected Aunt Flora too much to talk back. She pulled out a wooden chair and plopped down, but she held herself upright and looked at her aunt with an expression bordering on defiance. She was prepared to defend everything she’d said and done.

Aunt Flora stood with her fists planted on her hips and she glared down at Anna. “Now what Ah heard — and likely what Miss Josephine heard — is that you been meddlin’ in this business with the Basey girl, saying she shouldn’t have to carry her baby to term—”

“Aunt Flora! Rosie Basey’s a child. She’s just twelve and she’s all skin and bones! She’s not strong enough to carry a baby to term — much less the child of that fat, white—”

“Don’t you dare say that bad word in mah kitchen!” Aunt Flora stopped her.

“If somebody doesn’t do something soon, she’s going to die!” Anna protested furiously.

“Yes and everyone from here to Savannah knows you think that! Which means that if some mornin’ that child turns up without a baby in her belly, you goin’ to be in such hot water, there ain’t nothin’ Judge Warren can do to save you!”

“Abortion isn’t illegal if it’s necessary to save the life of the mother,” Anna countered. “I’ve been reading up—”

“Don’t go talkin’ legal gobbledegook with me, Anna Elizabeth. This don’t have nothin’ to do with the law. No one goin’ to give you a chance to defend you’self in some court where some fine lawyer paid for by the NAACP might point his finger at Cabe Lawson and demand he stand trial for rape—”

“Which is exactly what he should do!” Anna interrupted. “Why don’t people see that and demand it? A helpless twelve-year-old girl was raped by a white —” She bit her tongue, looking for a word she was allowed to use, “— ape, and nobody in this county has the guts to stand up and say so, much less help her!”

“Cabe Lawson’s got a rich daddy and people don’t want a lot of Yankee newspapermen comin’ down here to make fun of them and call them names. Before they let that happen, they will string you up on the nearest tree and use you for target practice like they did you’ great-granddaddy.”

Anna was blindsided. She’d come here expecting a lecture about being too outspoken. She’d expected Miss Josephine to gently advise her to keep a lower profile and for Aunt Flora to amplify the message more forcefully. She had not anticipated talk of lynching — and no one had ever told her that her great-grandfather had ended that way. “Great-Granddad Washington was lynched?” Anna asked in a dazed voice.

Aunt Flora nodded, and suddenly the rage that had burned in her was doused as if by a gust of rain. Aunt Flora seemed to shrink before Anna’s eyes, her anger replaced with something closer to despair and pain. A chill gripped Anna. “Why?” she whispered, already sensing how terrible the truth might be. “Why did they lynch him?”

Aunt Flora sank into the nearest kitchen chair and without looking at Anna she answered in a wooden tone, “They lynched him because he beat to a bloody pulp the boy who done raped me and shot the white boy goin’ after you’ mother.”

That was almost too much to take in. Anna stared at her aunt, her emotions in turmoil and her thoughts careening around her head. After a moment, she forced herself to focus on one fact. “You were raped by a white boy?” Flora nodded slowly. “And my mother?”

“You’ mother crawled out the window and ran into the woods screaming. Granddad heard her, saw a man chasin’ after her and shot him. Then he rushed into our bedroom and found me crushed on the bed hardly able to breathe, let alone cry for help —” she cut herself off and sat for several seconds with her eyes closed. Then she shook her head sharply as if to clear it of memories, and continued in a more matter-of-fact tone, “Granddad didn’t dare shoot in case he hit me, so he used his fists instead. When that boy couldn’t fight back no mo’, granddad kicked him outside and got me to the hospital. They wanted to keep me overnight, so he went home.” She stopped again to gather her strength and drew a deep breath before concluding, “The KKK was waitin’ for him. They overwhelmed him, strung him up, and shot him fifteen times.”

They stared at one another. Anna had a thousand questions. She drew a breath.

“Befo’ you ask,” Flora stopped her. “Yes, Ah did get pregnant, and that’s why Ah had to drop out of school. But Miss Josephine insisted on me comin’ and livin’ here, and Ah’ve had a home here ever since… and if you dare to lay you’ hands on an unborn infant—”

“Now Flora, there’s no need to use that tone of voice with our Anna,” Miss Josephine swept into the kitchen. Despite her 72 years, she was still elegant, but she was frail too. Anna guessed she weighed no more than 100 pounds, and her pale skin was marred by age marks that no amount of make-up could cover. Yet she was resolute and firm as she declared, “All Anna has been saying is that a mother’s life is as important as a baby’s and that a doctor ought to look into the matter. She’s quite right.”

As she spoke she crossed the kitchen to give Anna a hug and then gestured for her to sit down again, taking a seat herself.

“Anna, I didn’t send for you because of this business with the Basey girl. You’ve done nothing wrong, and you are quite right that something must be done to help her.” Miss Josephine’s bony hand with a large diamond ring reached out and covered Anna’s. “Trust me, Anna, the Judge and I will find a way to help. But your aunt is right, too. Some people around here don’t see straight, and they might make trouble for you. It’s time for you to consider other options for your future.”

Anna frowned, feeling patronized and muzzled. She wanted to protest, but she couldn’t bring herself to be rude — not knowing the full extent of Miss Josphine’s assistance to Aunt Flora. Miss Josephine continued, “I know how frustrated you’ve been since you returned from the army.” No doubt she did, Anna thought; she hadn’t made a secret of it. “The work here is monotonous and demoralizing and you’re earning donkey’s wages.” That summarised her life very well, Anna admitted. Her work consisted mostly of futile efforts to counter the effects of acute poverty on coloured women and children. Her daily bread was dealing with malnutrition, dysentery, rickets, TB, abuse, and neglect — with the occasional rape thrown in for variety, she thought bitterly.

Miss Josephine was continuing, “Now, I’m sure you remember Colonel and Mrs Howley, and you must have heard that Colonel Howley is now the US Commandant in Berlin”

“Of course!” Anna replied. How could she not have heard? She was amazed and thrilled to think that a man she had once given physical therapy to was now so important that he was often in the papers or on the radio. His wife had encouraged her to apply to the US Army Nursing Corps, and Anna was certain that the colonel had pulled strings to get her in.

“Well,” Miss Josephine continued, “it seems there is a terrible shortage of medical personnel in Berlin and Mrs Howley sent me a cable to ask if you would be interested in working as a nurse on an air ambulance. They thought of you because you speak German from working at that POW camp during the war.”

Anna was so astonished she could only stammer. “A flight nurse?” Ever since her army training near some Air Corps bases, she’d longed to fly. “With the army?”

“No, I’m afraid not. Mrs Howley says it’s a private British company, but this is still an amazing opportunity for you. It comes at a perfect time, too — when there are so many unkind rumours floating around. Some ignorant folks think you’ve become uppity and — wrong as they are — they could harm you.” Miss Josephine leaned closer to deliver this message. She was, Anna sensed, just as worried as Aunt Flora.

Anna nodded. She had joined the Army Nursing Corps to get away from Georgia. She’d wanted to see more of the country, more of the whole world. She’d dreamed of being sent to a field hospital in Europe. Instead, they’d sent her to a POW camp in Arkansas. Convinced she’d been shunted off to the POW camp because of the colour of her skin, she’d protested. That earned her a reprimand and blotted her record so much that, even when she uncovered an escape plot among some of the prisoners, she’d been given no recognition or reward. Maybe the army was different now that President Truman had ended segregation, but she wasn’t sure. So, working for a private company might be better. She’d just never imagined there might be any other way to get to Europe — or to fly.  

How many hours had she stared up at the sky, watching those bright yellow training planes while she worked at that camp in Arkansas?

Miss Josephine brought her back to the present. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Anna. I hope you’ll have the courage to seize it.”

Anna opened her mouth to agree but stopped herself and looked towards Aunt Flora. The older woman had tears in her eyes, but her voice was firm. “Go, Anna. Go and see the world — not just for you but for me and your mother and all of us stuck here in Dodge County!”

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Find out more about the Bridge to Tomorrow series, the awards it has won, and read reviews at: https://helenapschrader.net/bridge-to-tomorrow/

    

 

 

Characters of "Cold Victory" : Jasha

 Jasha is another character who reminds us of the unspeakable horrors the women of Eastern Europe endured at the hands of two dictators. Her husband and son were murdered by Stalin. She was enslaved by Hitler, and then raped by Soviet soldiers. Yet she is not broken and has found a rare soulmate in an aging British Lt. Colonel of Engineers. 

In this excerpt, Jasha prepares for her wedding and reflects on her life.

Jasha looked at herself in the mirror critically. She did not look like a bride. She wore a sleek, three-quarter length gown with matching jacket and hat that while elegant and sophisticated was not bridal. For her first wedding, she’d worn a traditional gown with puffy, white sleeves, and elaborate embroidery on the skirt and bodice that suited her plump and rosy body. But she was not sixteen any more and years as a slave labourer had left her gaunt. Nor was she marrying in a peasant village in White Russia with aunts, uncles and cousins galore. She wasn’t wearing white in the English tradition, either. How could she? She was neither pure nor innocent. She’d chosen instead a dress in a dusty rose colour, ashes-of-roses they called it. That seemed appropriate for a forty-five-year-old widow attempting to start over on the rubble of the past.

The only problem with the dress was that she owned no shoes to go with it; she had borrowed a pair of low, grey heels from Emily. Together they had stuffed handkerchiefs into the toes so she could walk in them without falling out. Hopefully, she reflected, she wasn’t trying to step into shoes too large for her on an abstract as well as a physical level. A quarter of a century ago, the villagers had whispered and fretted because she was marrying the young schoolteacher Jurek. He was a “stranger” and had gone to university, whereas her parents could hardly read or write. The consensus among her neighbours had been that she was getting “above herself” and no good would come of it.

They had been right, Jasha reflected, but not for the reasons they had imagined. Besides, there had been almost twenty good years before calamity struck. Jurek had taken her away from the hidebound village. He’d found jobs in larger towns and bigger schools until he got his wish of living and working in Minsk. Long before they reached Minsk, she had accepted that she would have no additional children after Alojzy was born. She had started working as a cook outside the home to make extra money. With Alojzy to dote on and worry about, it was easy to ignore that she and Jurek spent little time together anymore. The passion between them had definitely cooled, she admitted, and yet, there was nothing fundamentally wrong between them. If — She slammed a door on her thoughts.

Today she was marrying Graham and starting a new life. She was not going to let the ghosts interfere. She was not going to think about what she had lost. She was not going to ask herself whether Jurek or Alojzy would have approved. Nor did she want to think about what happened to her after Stalin murdered her husband and son. She had survived what she called ‘the years of terror’ but at a terrible cost. Yet, as she slipped her rosary into her handbag, she could not forget that a neighbour in Minsk had been sentenced to ten years in the Gulag just for owning one. The scars were there. They always would be. She was simply determined not to let them cripple her.

Emily Priestman called up the stairs, “Are you ready, Jasha? The car is out the front.”

“Yes, I’m coming.”  Jasha picked up the little wicker suitcase with her change of clothes and toiletries. Graham had booked them a room at the Hotel Olympia. She found she was both nervous and excited by the thought of sleeping with him. It was odd how the act of telling Graham about the rapes had freed her of their spell. They had been pushed into that place in in her brain alongside Jurek and Alojzy’s murders and her years as a slave, behind that mental door that she kept locked and barred.

She took the stairs slowly, afraid of falling out of her loose shoes, and found Emily waiting impatiently in the front hall. Yet when Jasha reached the last step, Emily broke into a smile and exclaimed, “You look lovely!”

“Yes?” Jasha asked back uncertainly. “I do not want to shame Graham. He is British officer. I do not want to look like peasant or servant.”

“You look like neither, Jasha,” Emily assured her, meeting her eyes. Then turning around, she pulled a large bouquet of pink roses from the table behind her. “Graham sent you these,” Emily told her as she handed them over, adding with a wink, “I did tell him the colour of your dress.”

They were so big and full that Jasha gasped in wonder. Where had he found roses like these in blockaded Berlin? They could only have come from some royal greenhouse in the West, she thought. Jasha felt tears in her eyes as she buried her nose in the blooms, breathing in their rich scent. Gardening was what had brought them together. Surprising her with a bouquet like this was the perfect gesture. 

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Characters of "Cold Victory" : J.B. Baronowsky, one of the Candy Bombers

J.B. Baronowsky is a former B-17 pilot who flew on the Airlift throughout the fall of 1948. He became involved in the candy drops to Berlin's children, but he has been yanked off the Airlift by his fiance's father. His soon-to-be father-in-law is a senior VP at General Motors, who could lean on his Congressman. 

 In this excerpt, J.B. listens to the news from Berlin and it triggers an unexpected conversation with his Dad with serious consequences.

J.B. Baronowsky stood in the living room of his parents’ small, single-level house in Ypsilanti, Michigan straining to hear the news crackling over the airwaves. The man speaking was Colonel Howley, the American commandant in Berlin. J.B. knew his voice well because he’d heard it a hundred times over the Armed Forces Network when he was flying the Airlift. Now, although the static made Howley sound like he was a world away, his elation and triumph had survived the trip across the Atlantic. “…a vote for Freedom! Mayor Reuter’s party has improved its hold on power by almost 16%. The SPD won an absolute majority with 64.5% of all votes cast.”

The reporter asked a question that was garbled by static, but Howley answered clearly. “The SPD is a democratic party, firmly committed to fighting Soviet tyranny and aggression. This is the party, remember, that voted unanimously against Hitler in 1933. Mayor Reuter is a courageous leader, and I look forward to working with him more closely than ever in the days and weeks ahead.”

Again, the reporter’s question was unintelligible, but J.B. hung on Howley’s words, “Absolutely, the Airlift will continue! The people of Berlin have made it 100% clear they do not want to be swallowed by the Russian bear. They don’t want to become slaves of Stalin. They’re willing to go without heat in their houses and live with just two hours of electricity a day and to walk to work and eat powdered potatoes, powdered milk and powdered eggs for as long as it takes to make Stalin loosen his hold. Let me tell you, it isn’t easy to live in the cold and the dark on half the food we Americans are used to, but the Berliners prefer that to being prisoners of a system that denies them the right to think for themselves. We could learn a thing or two from these hardy Berliners!”

The reporter thanked the colonel and the station cut off the connection with Berlin to turn to the sports news. J.B. reached up to switch off the radio altogether.

“What are you doing here, J.B.?” His father’s voice caught him by surprise. “I thought you were out with Patty all day?”

J.B. turned to face his father with a guilty shrug and a sheepish grin. “Yeah, I know, I mean — I don’t know. I wanted to hear what had happened in Berlin, and Patty and her folks don’t care. Besides, I needed to get away from them all for a bit.” He shrugged again uncomfortably and then admitted, “I made up an excuse about your car breaking down and how I had to take you and Mom over to grandma’s.”

His father nodded slowly, his expression unreadable, but his eyes were fixed hard on his son. J.B. avoided them, turning away to pick up the jacket he’d carelessly tossed on the sofa when he came in. He pulled the sleeves straight and folded it over his arm.

The elder Baronowsky watched him for a moment and then said in a low voice, “Look, Jay, I know you’re grown up and you don’t have to talk to me about anything. That’s fine. I don’t want to start running your life. But you ain’t been acting like a man who’s about to marry the girl of his dreams.”

“Dad—”

“Wait!” The older Baronowky held up his hand. “Hear me out, son. It’s true that your mom and I never really warmed to Patty, but before you went over to Germany, we agreed that she made you happy. You were pretty hot for her and glowed with pride when she was beside you. Since you came back from Germany, I don’t sense that same excitement or passion any more. I don’t see much swagger in having such a swanky girl almost in the sack, either. Did something change while you were in Germany?”

“I didn’t have an affair, if that’s what you’re asking!” J.B. snapped back defensively.

“Hadn’t even thought of that. I just asked if anything had changed.”

J.B. couldn’t meet his father’s penetrating eyes. He looked down and then sank onto the sagging sofa. His eyes were fixed on the old coffee table. Stains of countless cold drinks that had perspired into the wood marred the surface, yet all he saw was Kathleen coming out of the fog towards him. For his father, he shook his head and said slowly, “Nothing specific, Dad.”

His father went around to the other side of the coffee table and sat down. “Want to talk about it?”

J.B. drew a deep breath. It would have been easy to brush the old man off, to say it wasn’t any of his business or it wasn’t important. But it was. He’d hoped that being back with Patty again would make him forget Berlin and Kathleen. Instead, the more he was with Patty, the more he missed what he’d left behind. He tried to put his feelings into words his father would understand. “We were doing something good over there, Dad. I was glad to be part of it. Somehow, choosing drapes for our apartment and selecting the music for the band at the wedding just doesn’t seem very important.”

“No, but if you loved Patty, you’d still find it all kinda cute,” his father suggested.

“Are you saying I don’t love Patty?” J.B. gasped out.

“Do you?”

J.B. dropped his head in his hands and scratched at his scalp with his fingernails. Without looking up, he muttered, “All she seems to care about is how things look. It’s all about appearances. Does this match that? What’s the latest fashion? What colour is in vogue now? What will the neighbours think of this or that? And the bigger the price tag, the better it is. Is that right, Dad? Is life just about money and fashion and prestige?” He looked up to meet his father’s eyes.

The elder Baronowsky didn’t answer. Instead, he stood, went over to the sideboard, and pulled out a bottle of vodka and two glasses. He filled the glasses, brought them back to the sofa and nudged his son with one hand.  

J.B. took the offered glass but didn’t drink. Instead, he put it on the table and tried to explain, “I’ve tried to tell her about Berlin — the conditions people live in, the way the kids went wild when we dropped the candy, the presents they and their mothers gave us — handmade things like knitted socks or old books and lace napkins, anything that had survived the bombing. They didn’t have enough to eat, but they kept trying to give us presents!” Although he sounded exasperated, what he wanted was for other people to feel the same amazement and incomprehension that he did. Instead, most people just said something meaningless like: “That was nice of them.” Patty, on the other hand, had responded with, “I hope you didn’t keep any of that junk! We don’t want to clutter up our beautiful house with dirty, old stuff.”

His dad’s response took him by surprise. “The Poles would have treated you the same way. In Europe, you never take anything without giving a gift in return. If someone invites you to dinner, you bring them flowers or wine. If someone gives you a birthday present, you offer them coffee and cake. Because you are bringing the supplies in, the Berliners want to give you something back. Otherwise, they would feel humiliated.”

“That’s it! That’s just what it is!” J.B. exclaimed. It was a relief to have the mystery solved and he wondered why he hadn’t talked to his dad about this earlier. “I think the biggest thing I learned is that they weren’t all Nazis. … Most of the Germans — just like most Americans — didn’t care much about politics until it was too late. …  It’s because of what the Nazis did that the Berliners don’t want to bow to Stalin. They know what a dictatorship is, and they’ve had enough. Helping them is the right thing to do. That’s why I’d rather be flying the Airlift than designing trucks for GM.”

His father nodded and asked the question J.B. dreaded, “And Patty? Where does Patty fit into all this?”

“I don’t know! She certainly doesn’t want to hear about Germany or Berlin or what I did there. She doesn’t care about any of it.” J.B. took a deep breath and admitted, “Sometimes, I get the feeling that she doesn’t care all that much about me, either. I’m just part of the furniture. I have the right looks to fit into her living room — yeah, maybe her bedroom too — but is that all I am? A body to put into her perfect home and bring home the bucks so she can live in style?”

“Don’t marry her, Jay.”

Despite his complaining, the answer shook J.B. “Hey, Dad! That’s pretty stiff medicine! She’s made wedding plans — a second time now! Her family has spent a fortune on a wedding gown, shoes, flowers, band, catering and all that—”

“No one asked them to,” the senior Baronowsky reminded his son. “That was their choice.”

“Yeah, I know, but she’s been patient while I was away. If I break up with her now, she’ll go to pieces!” It was a frightening scenario.

“Listen to me, Jay,” his father interrupted his thoughts. “It’s the rest of your life you’re talking about. If you aren’t crazy about her now, you ain’t gonna be crazy about her after she’s gained forty pounds and is spending your money like it was water.”

True, J.B. thought, but if he broke things off he’d trigger a tempest of recriminations.

His father hadn’t finished, “I know divorce is becoming fashionable in some circles, but the Church does not recognise it. In the eyes of God, once you give your vows to Patty and take her to your bed, you are bound to her and her alone — forsaking all others — until death takes one or the other of you. You may sin. A lot of men do. But you will never be free of her to find a woman who could make you happy. She will make you miserable, Jay — your whole life long.”

J.B. dropped his head in his hands again. Then he noticed the untouched vodka, picked up the glass and threw the alcohol down his gullet with one toss. Shaking his head, he addressed his dad, “If I break off with Patty, that snazzy job at GM goes up in smoke, too.”

“I thought you just told me you’d rather be flying the airlift than designing trucks?”

J.B. opened and closed his mouth, swallowed, and then pushed the shot glass across the table, “Can I have some more of that?”

His father got up, poured them both another shot of vodka and handed J.B. his glass. Still standing, he reminded his sitting son, “You never wanted that job, Jay. You wanted the job at the Michigan Aeronautical Research Centre.”

“Yeah, but that job’s long gone, Dad. They gave it to their next best candidate as soon as I turned them down.”

“So, you can go back on active duty with the USAF. I know!” His dad held up both hands as if in surrender. “They pay peanuts! Still, you could volunteer to go back on the Airlift.”

J.B. looked down at the table. Kathleen was coming at him out of the fog, and in the background, the kids were waving wildly in happiness.

“That’s what you want, isn’t it?” his father drummed the message home.

“Yeah,” J.B. admitted, looking up at him.

“Then don’t let something as inconsequential as a dumb blonde and her temper tantrum get in your way. You’ve got more important things to do with your life, Jay.”

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Find out more about the Bridge to Tomorrow series, the awards it has won, and read reviews at: https://helenapschrader.net/bridge-to-tomorrow/