Anna, feeling wonderstruck by Stalling’s vision for the school, clasped her hands. “That would be glorious, sir.”
Stalling nodded.
Together, they watched Horst and the dog slowly traverse the garden.I’m witnessing a momentous event, she thought. A swell of hope rose up inside Anna, and she longed to be part of something bigger than herself.
CHAPTER3
OLDENBURG, GERMANY—APRIL17, 1916
Anna, eager to tell hervaterabout the day’s events, finished work and left the hospital. In the distance, St. Lambert’s Church—its neo-Gothic spires towering above the town’s clay tile rooftops—formed a silhouette against a magenta sky. She scurried toward home, disregarding crosswalks and taking shortcuts through backstreets and alleyways. She dodged horse-drawn wagons and bicyclists, as well as a skinny-wheeled motorcar that was transporting a high-ranking military officer. Ten minutes later, she reached her home, a narrow three-story brick building on a cobblestone street. A carved wooden sign above the storefront readUhrmacher(clockmaker).
“Vater!” Anna shouted, stepping inside. She took in gulps of air, attempting to catch her breath. A scent of ancient timber, varnish, and clock oil permeated her nose. Rhythmical timepiece ticking thrummed in her ears.
“I’ll be right there,” a voice called from a storage room.
The street-level floor of Anna’s home served as her father’s workshop. The walls, workbenches, and dust-covered glass cases contained numerous timepieces, either functioning or in various stages of repair. Wall clocks. Grandfather clocks. Watches. Alarm clocks. Mantel clocks. Pendulum clocks. Regulator clocks. Carriage clocks. Cuckoo clocks. After the war erupted, most of the residents of Oldenburg refrained from servicing their clocks, and the sale of refurbished pieces dwindled to almost a stop. Norbie Zeller, who had once been charged with caring for the town’s most prized timepieces, including the clock towers in Oldenburg Palace and St. Lambert’s Church, struggled to earn a living.
Norbie, a fifty-nine-year-old man with salt-and-pepper hair, beard, and mustache, entered the workshop. He adjusted his round, wire-rimmed glasses, which were balanced on the tip of his bulbous nose. “Hallo, Anna.”
She hugged hervater.
He squeezed her. “Is everything okay?”
“Ja,” Anna said, releasing him. “Something good happened at work. I raced home to tell you about it.”
“I’ll close the shop and make us a bit of coffee.”
She glanced at a wall of clocks, their pendulums swinging out of sync. “But you’re open for another hour.”
“I’d rather hear about my daughter’s day.” He locked the door and placed aClosedsign in the window.
Anna smiled. A memory of her childhood flashed in her head of when Norbie shooed away customers to create time to listen to her rehearse lines for a school play.I love that you always drop what you are doing to make time for me.Feeling grateful for hervater’s undivided attention, she followed him up the stairs, leaving the ticktock resonance of the workshop behind.
Minutes later, they sat at the kitchen table. Norbie poured coffee into porcelain cups, hand-painted with white roses and green wreaths, which they typically used for holidays.
“I wish we had cream or sugar,” he said, sliding a cup to Anna.
“Danke,” she said. “But we should be saving the coffee. The rationing is getting worse. It’s unlikely we’ll find more.”
Norbie blew on his coffee. “Good news rarely arises from a military hospital. I see hope and excitement in your eyes, and that makes me want to celebrate.”
Anna smiled, and then sipped her coffee. The bitter, acidic taste invigorated her mind, spawning images of her afternoon in the hospital garden. For the next several minutes, she told Norbie about the battle-blinded soldier, who was guided along a garden path by Dr. Stalling’s German shepherd.
“It was lovely,” Anna said, rubbing a finger over the rim of her cup. “The man followed the dog’s lead, routing him around the garden. I wish you could have seen the happiness on the man’s face.”
“Incredible,” Norbie said. “I didn’t know that shepherds were trained for the blind.”
“They’re not,” Anna said. “But they’ve been trained for many roles in the military. Dr. Stalling is a director of the Ambulance Dogs Association. He believes that dogs can be trained in great numbers for the blind, and he plans to request funding from the government to establish a guide dog school in Oldenburg.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. But Stalling mentioned that he plans to gain the support of the Grand Duke of Oldenburg to acquire ground for the school.”
“That is wonderful news.” Norbie sipped his coffee. “Stalling must be quite an influential doctor.”
Anna nodded. “We’ve admitted scores of battle-blinded soldiers at the hospital, and more are coming in each day from the front. With the medical staff occupied with caring for the critically injured, the blinded men are often unaccompanied while they sit on benches or wander the floors of the hospital, gliding their hands over the walls to find their way.”
“My goodness,” Norbie said.
