We Are Only Ghosts

by Jeffrey L. Richards

Genres: World War II

Synopsis

An extraordinary, emotionally intense novel spanning World War II Europe to 1960s New York City with an unsettling psychological edge, We Are Only Ghosts depicts not only the horrors of the death camps but the toll on those who survived—powered by a story of the unexpected, complicated connection between a Nazi officer and a young Jewish boy.
 
New York City, 1968: The customers at Café Marie don’t come just for the excellent coffee and pastries. They come for the sophisticated ambiance, and the illusion of being somewhere other than a bustling, exhausting city. Headwaiter Charles Ward helps create that illusion through impeccable service—unobtrusive, nearly invisible, yet always watchful.
 
It’s a skill Charles honed as a young Jewish boy in war-torn Europe, when avoiding attention might mean the difference between life and death. But even then, one man saw him all too clearly—a Nazi officer who was both his savior and tormentor.
 
At seventeen, Charles was deported to Auschwitz with his family. There he was singled out by Obersturmführer Berthold Werden, who hid him in his home. Their entanglement produced a tortured affection mixed with hatred that flares to life again, decades later, when Berthold walks into Café Marie.
 
Drawn back into Berthold’s orbit, Charles is forced to revisit the pain and the brief, undeniable pleasures of the life he once knew. And if he acts on his growing hunger for revenge, will he lose his only tether to the past—the only other witness to who he was and everything he endured—or find peace at last?

Release date: February 20, 2024

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 352

Sample

A creature of habit, the man arrives at the same time every weekday afternoon. He selects the table on the far right at the front of the café, perhaps a vantage point of some sort. Most men have eschewed wearing hats these days, but some still honor the practice. The gentleman is one such man, a traditionalist, even beyond the fedora. When he removes his hat, he reveals immaculately groomed gray hair. While much about him presents a man in his late fifties or perhaps older, his stature speaks of a confidence from younger, fitter days. The combination draws the eye.

Once settled, the gentleman orders coffee (“Strong, none of that weak brown water you serve the French.”) and a pastry (“Only if it is fresh, otherwise bring me nothing.”). When he speaks, it is in impeccable, methodic, and practiced English. If you listen intently and have an ear for these details, you detect slight traces of European intonations, definitely German, possibly Austrian.

As headwaiter of Café Marie, Charles Ward has marked the man’s daily arrivals since he first stepped foot in the café a little over two weeks ago. Most often, he attends the man, their interactions brief and pointed. Should one of the other waiters attend him, Charles makes a point to observe. A gentleman prone to particularities can pose a challenge.

Given his penchant for wearing hats and the fact that he is distinguished, as older men with money tend to be, and handsome, the gentleman stirs Charles. But it is more than base desire. Something about the man pricks and scratches at Charles, an irritation that can’t quite be identified.

Then the woman appears.

Preparing coffee service for another table, Charles does not mark her arrival. But he, and the entirety of the café, hears clear and loud when she declares, “Dis place iz a dump.”

In response to the dark disdain of the woman’s voice, Charles cringes. The voice echoes through him. He stiffens, as if fingers have seized the base of his neck and throttled him. He shudders at the wave of swift memory that floods through him, an unexpected submersion into the waters of the past.

He tries to calm himself with reason. Of course, his body has misunderstood due to a trick of acoustics and distance. Otherwise, it makes no sense. Still, with rising dread, Charles knows that when he looks, he will not find a trick. He will find her.

From the service area, Charles peers out into the open room of the café. Indeed, there she sits, stout and hard, and unpleasant, as always. Even if he wants to pretend he is mistaken, he cannot. If she is anything, she is unmistakable, hunkering in Charles’s memory, implacable as a marked grave. Though her back is to Charles, denial is futile, he knows it is her. How many times had he imagined stepping up behind her, one of her husband’s belts wrapped in his fists, taking her by surprise?

How could he ever forget her?

He couldn’t.

He can’t.

He hasn’t.

Charles isn’t sure how long he stands at the back of the café, watching her. His hands shake with the confusion that sits deep in the core of his reality as his mind attempts to understand the moment, which has suddenly flipped and twisted itself into some unnatural contortion.

The high, bright ting of a spoon against the side of a coffee cup brings Charles back to himself, to the moment at hand. What was he doing? Ah, yes . . . Pushing aside the confusion of the woman’s existence in his present-day world, Charles sets about his duties. He arranges cups and saucers on a tray, sugar and fresh cream, a silver-plated coffee urn. He makes his way to his guests, two deeply handsome Italian men, who are discussing business with much passion. At the table, Charles pours their coffees with his usual aplomb. Not a clink of porcelain, not a misplaced drop of coffee. He is a professional, after all.

Only when he has returned to the service area does another fact enter his understanding. A fact far more stunning. If the woman is her, then the gentleman can only be him.

And here, with the denial that has haunted him ever since the man entered the café two weeks ago unable to sustain itself, Charles truly falters. Something in the process of his existence breaks. An omission of a beat, a breath, a vital flow reduced to near halting causes the moment to sway and lengthen to its fullest point. Charles grips the counter, anchoring himself within the vertiginous moment.

His breath comes in shallow gasps. Panic, something he hasn’t felt in a long time, spumes through his chest. How Charles hates panic, the heat and fluster, the swell and weight, the way it gums his thoughts.

Though still unsure of his equilibrium, Charles finds enough focus to walk the length of the dining room, his pace sure and measured. He ignores all about him, especially the gentleman and the woman. He knows one tick of contact with a customer can bring a request, and the moment would, once again, trap him. So, he paces forward until he exits the café through the French doors that open onto Sixty-Third Street. Outside, he pauses beyond the entrance, letting the spring air cool his flushed skin.

From his apron he retrieves a lone Viceroy cigarette, his allotment for the workday. Usually, he steps down the sidewalk to hide the act from his customers. There is nothing as distasteful as watching a waiter suck at a cigarette, then return to his station in a reek of ash and smoke. But today Charles hovers near the doorway. He nicks glances at the gentleman and his wife. From this angle, and with a sense of understanding, Charles sheds any lingering doubt as to who she is, who he is, who they are.

His hand jitters as he brings the cigarette to his lips. He pulls at the smoke and lets it sit in him, hoping perhaps that his lungs will catch fire and he’ll combust right on the spot. He hazards another glance, then an outright stare. Once he knows to look for Berthold in the face of the gentleman, he is unmistakable. He is there in the Germanic set of the jaw; in the straight, narrow nose; in the steel gray of the eyes. He is there in the entirety of the gentleman.

How he has missed this fact for even a moment, let alone two weeks, is beyond him. He used to be so observant, so aware. He has softened with age and security and distance, and the realization unnerves him.

Everything around Charles remains unchanged. The brownstones that line the block remain standing. The newspaper store across the street still sells its newspapers and cigarettes and gum. A few doors down, Sal the barber stands behind a gentleman, cutting his hair and chatting, as he always does, most likely about some baseball game that happened the previous evening. At the east end of the street, steamy smoke bellows from the dry cleaners. Much to Charles’s amazement, all remains as it was. Given his shocking transportation back to the past, he expected to see a world as violently transformed as he feels. But the world at large has not altered one whit. People continue to pass by, hurrying about their business. Somewhere down the street, a car horn bleats, then falls silent, as if awaiting a response that never comes.

For Charles, the moments languish in that wavering ether between past and present. The seismic shift within continues as internal tectonic plates readjust in the aftermath of this new consciousness. They move into new positions, nudging and cracking previous solidifications, creating a new—

“Charles?”

Jarred, Charles looks at Jacques, standing in the doorway of the café, his face betraying great concern. Jacques is far too free with his emotions for Charles’s taste, but what can you do about the young and the French?

“Are you okay?” Jacques asks, only a trace of his Parisian accent evident. He has been working to mask it, to sound as American as possible. He is close but for the persistent liquidity of his speech, a quality so indicative of Romance languages. He can’t seem to master the coarse banality of the American language, especially its slang. “Si primitif et laid,” he says. And Charles can’t help but agree.

“Yes, I am fine,” Charles responds, more to himself than to Jacques. He offers a soft smile, which he knows will assuage Jacques’s concerns. He stubs out the cigarette on the bottom of his shoe, then slips it into his pocket. He abhors litter, especially in front of Café Marie.

Jacques offers his own smile, sweet and charming, infectious in its lack of guile. Having been in America only a year or so, Jacques looks up to Charles. While he is young and cute, Charles knows his naivete is a calculated affectation. Jacques, he knows, is not as adolescent as he portrays himself to be. But it is a good act, one that works with the customers.

When Charles reenters the café, he makes a point to catch the gentleman’s attention. With a slight challenge, Charles holds the moment and searches for mutual recognition in the gaze but finds none. After a moment of curious hesitation, the gentleman tenders a dismissive nod. The wife does not see the exchange, oblivious as always.

Of course, the gentleman returns the next day.

As Jacques tends to the man, he attempts a bit of dull banter (“How are you today, sir? Are you enjoying the change in weather?”). Quite the puppy at times, Jacques can be energetic to the point of annoyance. Berthold, never one for idle chitchat, then or now, shoos him away without a response.

The aborted interaction makes Charles smile.

Typically, Charles does not make himself known to his customers. At the table, he will greet them with a noninteractive “Good day.” He will offer his name, should they need to call out to him for any reason (though he will ensure they will not find reason to do so). He will accept their order and bring anything they request, but with as little intrusion as possible. He imagines himself a ghost, an apparition, leaving no mark upon the men and women he serves. They have come to Café Marie for the coffee and the pastries, yes, but above all, they have come for the illusion of being somewhere other than New York City. But with the gentleman, with Berthold—Charles forces himself to say his name, if only to himself—Charles makes a point to catch his eye when he arrives, to ensure he is seen and known. Each day, he searches Berthold for recognition, searches for that realization that shook Charles in a mere breath of a moment, but each day he is denied, and each day the questions continue.

His next workday off, after completing the laundry, the shopping, and other household chores, Charles makes his way uptown from his apartment in the East Village. He strolls the scattered streets of Manhattan. Here and there, he lingers outside the shops he passes: a clothing store, a record shop, his favorite bookstore. At street corners, he watches people rush for no other reason than to keep pace with the energy of the people around them. He stands still, letting the crisp air agitate about him, as if time itself were slamming against his resistance.

Continuing uptown, he intentionally walks through Times Square, through the press of awed and excited tourists as they oscillate this way and that. He watches them crane their necks upward in feeble attempts to capture it all. They take snapshot pictures that will develop with blurred figures and hazy edges, and they will feel they have captured the true essence of New York City. And perhaps they have.

Meaty aromas waft from the hot dog carts that feed endless lines of rushed businessmen and cheap tourists. For a moment, the smell entices, but then the tinny, acrid smell of the steaming water infiltrates, reminding Charles of the taste of blood. Still, his hunger has been teased. He makes his way to the Automat at Forty-second and Broadway. Charles has always liked the sleek stainless-steel environment of the Automat. Now long past its prime, it’s like the future has somehow been trapped in the past.

Still, Charles enjoys standing in line, his plastic tray gliding smoothly along the stainless-steel countertop. He marvels in front of the wall of small windows that present the day’s offerings: meat loaf, roast beef, chicken soup, peas and carrots, a baked chicken leg, myriad sandwiches. His head swoons with the numerous options, which, when combined, will assemble a complete meal. He drops his coins into the slot and hears the clicking release of the window. When he removes his ham and cheese sandwich, he peers inside to glimpse the inner workings of the place. He spies an older Negro woman, dressed in her bright white Automat uniform with baby blue apron, as she moves in choreographed precision to replace the empty cubby with another, at-the-ready sandwich. She catches Charles watching her. He smiles and nods. She does the same, then returns to her work. A pour of coffee from one of the whimsical dolphin-head spigots, which always brings a smile to Charles’s face, completes his meal.

At the crowded counter, Charles sits elbow to elbow with the secretaries on their lunch breaks. They wear tight yet respectable skirts and florid blouses. Harsh red lipstick bleeds at the edges of the bite marks they leave in their tuna sandwiches. They chat and gossip in hushed, catty whispers about their bosses (“I swear, it’s like working for an octopus. I spend most of my day swatting at his hands. But look at the scarf he gave me!”) and about their love lives (“Four dates and he hasn’t even tried to kiss me! Might as well be dating my sister!”). The chatter comforts in its banality.

After finishing his sandwich, Charles considers a slice of cherry pie. He likes the pies at the Automat. While he loves the fresh, delicate French pastries at Café Marie, sometimes he desires something simple and heavy with lard. Charles never feels more American than when he craves cherry pie. But he doesn’t indulge. He swivels away from the counter and the office girls and exits back into the swarm of Times Square. He continues north.

To any person marking Charles’s route, it would appear purposeless, without aim, like that of a man free from obligation or expectation. Which might be true, but that doesn’t mean he is a man without destination.

On Sixty-Third Street Charles nears Café Marie but is on the opposite side of the street. He slows his pace and haunts the moment. He checks his watch. Despite his disciplined stroll and stop for lunch, he is early. He slips into the newsstand.

“Good afternoon, Charles,” Mrs. Leifer greets. She reaches for a pack of Viceroys and places it on the counter, along with a book of matches.

“Good afternoon,” Charles says in return.

Charles darts a glance toward the café. Berthold, stationed at his usual table, sips his coffee as he reads the New York Times. Charles wonders if Berthold looked for him as he entered, or was his absence unmarked? Every other moment or so, Berthold cuts at a piece of pastry, strudel, his favorite. Unhurried and easy, he will not be leaving for another twenty minutes if he stays true to his usual schedule, which Charles has no doubt he will. Berthold was always a regimented man.

“Not working today?” Mrs. Leifer asks, bringing Charles back to the transaction at hand.

As he is dressed in casual dungarees, a button-down shirt, and worn brown loafers, Mrs. Leifer knows the answer to her question. “Then why are you in my store on your day off?” is the true question.

“Not working today.” Charles gently shoves her unasked question aside as he pays for the cigarettes.

He knows his lack of elaboration perturbs Mrs. Leifer. She likes to know the goings-on in her neighborhood, and the methodic, predictable Charles Ward stepping out of his routine goads her curiosity. He ignores her prying look and offers a “Good day” as he exits the store.

On the sidewalk, Charles stands exposed. He doesn’t worry that Berthold will notice him. Dressed in civilian wear, Charles will be invisible to his customer. He’s been invisible for weeks while standing right next to him; across the street he will be nothing more than a shadow of any other person in the world. Nor does Charles worry about William, the other waiter on duty, who is only ever concerned with how much gratuity he can charm from customers. Crass and obvious to Charles, he is an excellent waiter, nonetheless. No, his real worry lies with Jacques.

Something akin to an infatuation has aerated the space between them from the moment they met over a year ago. A silly and childish interest that might have waned with time and familiarity, but for an evening of too many drinks that ended up in Charles’s bed. Not that Charles is such a great lover, but he knows more than some, certainly more than Jacques, especially when expressing passion, even if fabricated. The young can be so gullible and often misconstrue lust for something more intoxicating. Jacques was smitten and then some. Flattering, of course, to have a young man, one almost twenty years younger, pursuing you, especially at forty-two. So, Charles succumbed to his own desires a few more times. He believed it harmless fun, even while denying that he likes Jacques more than he should. But the age difference made matters quite improbable, he decided.

But presently, Charles concerns himself with what Jacques might think of seeing him lingering outside the café on his day off. Are you here for me? Jacques might wonder. Please, be here for me.

Charles hastens up the block and ducks into Schneiderman’s Soda Shoppe a few doors down. After settling in a booth by the window, Charles signals the young waitress, who is daydreaming behind the counter. A Hunter College girl, Charles suspects, given the textbook over which she hovers. He orders a chocolate egg cream and watches her go about her task. Does she work to send herself through school, he wonders, or merely to supplement the pocket money her parents send? Is she an out-of-town student whose father doesn’t understand the expense of living in Manhattan?

She delivers the egg cream. A noncommittal smile tugs at the corners of her lips before she about-faces, as if she fears any further engagement might pull her too far from her studies. She returns to her position behind the counter and pages lazily through the book.

While Charles envies her college life, he doesn’t begrudge her momentary boredom, that gelatinous postadolescent state of being not a child, not an adult (as long as she is beholden to her parents and their money, despite the nickel-and-dime tips tossed on the soda shoppe counter). Perhaps he envies her life—but only for a moment, because what good does any of it do?

Charles lights a cigarette, leaving the waitress to her ennui, and returns to his present world. The past few days have brought a clutter of questions about Berthold and Frau Werden. How long have they been in New York? How long in America? Had they been here even before Charles arrived? What of the children? The most persistent questions return again and again: How does Berthold not recognize him? How did Charles not recognize him the moment he stepped foot in Café Marie? Time has changed them both, of course, but so much that it has diluted their memories of each other to nonexistent?

Charles confesses he has not thought of the Werdens in years, not outright. Of course, they ghost his life like others from his past: his parents, his sisters, Havel, Eliáš, Maude, Mrs. Perkins, various others, the human debris that litters one’s past as one moves from moment to moment, from there to here. Occasionally, they flicker into memory at unexpected moments like halos in double-exposed film, irresolute blurs that cloud his thoughts, causing him to teeter on the edge between past and present. But Charles makes sure never to cross the line, never to go back there. He’s never sure he’ll find his way back.

But to sit and think of Berthold, Frau Werden, Marlene, Geert, to remember that time of his life . . . No, he has not done that in years. Even now his mind resists the return, standing at the wall he’s spent a lifetime building, protecting him from the memories and the debilitating emotions they summon. You can’t survive if you’re a jumble of emotion, vulnerable and exposed and weak. How Charles loathes weakness—in others, yes, but mostly in himself.

Lost in the tumult of his own thoughts, Charles almost misses Berthold strolling past, catching sight of him the moment before he walks out of the frame of the soda shoppe window. But Charles doesn’t panic, doesn’t rush. He takes the time to finish his egg cream, refraining from slurping at the sediment like some ill-bred schoolboy. When he’s finished, he places a few dollars on the table and nods to the waitress on his way out.

As Charles suspected, Berthold walks as he speaks—measured, thoughtful, planned. He does not weave among the foot traffic to force time along, like so many in this city. No, with a pace born of his soldiering days, he exhibits sureness and meaning with each footfall. That ingraining does not leave you after you set the rifle down, shed the uniform, flee the country.

As Charles falls into step, impersonating Berthold’s gait and cadence, he witnesses once again Obersturmführer Werden in the man’s posture and focus. He can see the Obersturmführer bedecked in his uniform, the deep steel gray designated for special occasions: official Wehrmacht events, family holidays, or the rare visit from Reichsführer Himmler. Here Charles allows a memory to break through of how nervous and excited Berthold could be when Himmler scheduled a visit, like a child anticipating the arrival of his favorite uncle, all chatter and tremble as he readied himself. Was he desperate for acknowledgment, for recognition, for the Reichsführer’s approval, or was he maybe ducking disapproval, which could lead to discipline, a transfer, death? Either way, Berthold needn’t have worried. Handsome and fit, exemplary in appearance and duty, he was the perfect soldier. Still, he jittered with excitement, so much so that he could not tie his tie. Charles stepped in to calm him. As they stood face-to-face, he took Berthold’s fumbling hands in his and held them at his sides, their faces millimeters apart.

“Breathe, Berthold,” Charles instructed.

Once Berthold had calmed his panic, Charles released his hold. With Berthold’s arms hanging at his sides, Charles commenced to tie the tie, flipping and looping the satin fabric with certainty and deftness. Funnily enough, Berthold had taught Charles the ritual only months before.

“Every young man should know how to tie a tie, Charles. Didn’t your father ever teach you?” Berthold had asked as he escorted Charles upstairs, a rare moment when the two of them were alone in the house after the children had departed for school and Frau Werden had gone out to run errands. Berthold had lingered before heading to the camp for the day, as he did on occasion. In his and Frau Werden’s bedroom, Berthold and Charles had stood side by side in the large mirror over the dresser. Charles mimicked Berthold’s movements as he watched his own in the mirror. Concentration darkened Berthold’s gray eyes to the color of wet pavement.

“It’s harder when you think about it. I’m so used to just doing it. I’m getting so confused,” Berthold chuckled as he continued to configure the fabric over and over again, tying and untying, ensuring Charles marked each step. Charles laughed, as well, but learned each step, each flip and loop and tug and adjustment, so one day in the near future he would stand in front of Berthold and tie his tie for him before sending him off to the camp at Auschwitz to meet with Reichsführer Himmler.

And to complete the circle, in the very distant future, Charles would tie his own tie every day with quick, deft precision. He rarely stood in a mirror to do so, because Berthold was right: it was harder when you thought about it.

If his math is correct, Berthold was younger then than Charles is now, and the thought surprises Charles. How adult Berthold seemed then. How strong and big and in control, even in those unsure moments. And how unlike Charles now, at the age of forty-two.

Berthold turns onto Fifth Avenue, then meanders down the street. No, that is not correct. Berthold does not meander. He does not saunter. He does not amble or ramble or wander. Nor does he mar. . .