Always and Forever Read Free Page B

world.
    Mom wanted her to stay home, meet a nice man, and get married. Couldn’t Mom understand that after what had happened in the last few years she couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t make an effort, however small, to help the world recover from World War II?
    “Kathy,” Marge began as she pulled away from the curb and joined the stream of traffic down Thirteenth Avenue, “how many doctors did you say were in the group?”
    “Two,” Kathy reported. “The other ten of us are what my English teacher would have called a motley crew. Including a plumber, a psychiatric social worker, and a third-year law student.”
    “And all of you under thirty,” Marge drawled knowingly. “Don’t tell me there won’t be a lot of partying aboard that ship.”
    “There won’t be any partying in Hamburg,” Kathy said with conviction. “I hear the city was one of the worst hit in Europe. And we’re traveling with hordes of canned goods because food is hard to come by.”
    “Two doctors,” Marge repeated. Her smile blissful. “And one of them, I gather from what you told me, is the smoldering, moody type. Like Laurence Olivier in Wuthering Heights. ”
    “No,” Kathy denied. All at once self-conscious.
    Marge clucked in reproach. “What did you say his name was?”
    “I forget,” Kathy lied.
    She had never compared David Kohn to Laurence Olivier, she told herself defensively. She and Marge had had such mad crushes on Olivier their last year at Erasmus. But all at once she recalled David Kohn’s brooding good looks. There was a kind of resemblance between him and the famous actor.

Chapter 2
    A S THE COMMUTER TRAIN from Greenwich chugged into the depths of Grand Central Station, David Kohn reached for the two much-scarred leather valises that had traveled with him from Berlin ten years ago, when his parents had packed him off to school in New York. It was still possible then to send money out of Germany for educational purposes. He could hear his father’s voice:
    “You’ll be far away from home, David; but you won’t be alone. My cousin Julius will watch over you. You’ll go to school with his son Phillip. You’ll be with family—and you’ll be safe from this curse that has come over us here in Germany.”
    He hadn’t been back to Europe since the summer of 1937, when, according to his father’s instructions, he visited Salzburg. Was he making a mistake in returning to Germany, even for a few months? Could he handle it?
    All these years later he felt sick when he remembered that strange meeting with Papa on the bridge that connected Salzburg with Germany. The Nazis had allowed Papa to continue operating his private hospital and research center—which had been his father’s before him—because of the important work on nutrition he was doing in his laboratory. A special ruling afforded him the privilege. By then, Jews had been deprived of almost all their rights. Papa had gone to Munich to deliver a paper on this research, and from there had traveled to the bridge. David broke into a cold sweat as he remembered that meeting….
    His eyes crept constantly to his watch because the timing of this meeting was crucial. Papa had insisted that it was too dangerous for him to travel through Germany under present conditions. Instead, he had gone from London to Prague and then to Salzburg.
    His gaze clung to the face of his watch as the time of the meeting approached. His heart pounded. Now, he exhorted himself. Now was the time. Walk toward the bridge. Appear to be a tourist. The Nazi frontier guards at the barbed wire must not realize he and Papa knew each other.
    There he was. How much older his father looked in the two years since they had seen each other! Papa said it was impossible to send money out of Germany anymore. This was the only way to give him funds to continue on through college and into medical school. There had never been any question in either of their minds but that he would become a doctor