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“Do you remember her name? Was it Gisela?”
“It might have been. I’m sorry, but I have a hard time remembering names. Later that summer, the Soviets took over Buchenwald because it was in their occupation zone. Jim and I and most of the others were transferred to Frankfurt. I know that he continued to work closely with the Jewish relief agencies and he volunteered in a displaced persons camp nearby. I think the woman he married was from that DP camp.”
Married?
Static crackled along the telephone line. His words stunned me. I thought I must have misunderstood, but Mrs. Barnett gasped and covered her heart, so she must have heard him, too.
“What did you say?” I finally breathed. “Jimmy... Jimmy got married?”
“He filled out all the paperwork that the Army requires for an American soldier to marry a foreign bride and bring her to the United States. I signed everything for him myself. I even helped him postpone his discharge so he could wade through all the red tape.”
“H-he never told us—his family, I mean. About getting married. And he didn’t have a wife with him when he arrived home.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe it didn’t work out. I wish I knew more, but I don’t. I’m sorry.”
“You’ve been a big help just the same. Thank you for your time.”
I hung up the phone. Mrs. Barnett and I stared at each other in disbelief for what felt like an eternity. My heart was racing, and I could tell by Mrs. Barnett’s expression that she was as shocked as I was. It felt like we’d walked into the movie theater near the end of the film and had no idea what was going on.
“What do you suppose happened to her?” she murmured.
I could only shake my head. We still hadn’t moved away from the telephone stand in the hallway when Mr. Barnett’s truck pulled into the driveway. The screen door in the kitchen squealed open, then banged shut again. “Martha?” he called.
“In here.”
“Did I miss the telephone call?” he asked as he hurried toward us.
“You’ll never believe it, Gordon, never in a million years. Jimmy got married!”
“What?”
“We just spoke to the major and he told us that Jimmy married a woman from one of the displaced persons camps when he was over in Germany.”
“Really? Our Jim?”
“That’s what he said.”
“Well, where is she? What happened to her?” He gestured around the foyer as if she might be hiding behind the coatrack.
“The major didn’t know. He couldn’t tell us anything else. Oh, Gordon, do you think this might have something to do with why Jimmy—? I mean, if she died...”
“It might. Especially when you add it to all of the other things he went through—fighting the war, watching his friends die, liberating the concentration camp.”
“There should be more records somewhere, shouldn’t there?” I said when I finally recovered enough to speak. “The Army must know if and when he got married and what happened after that. We could write to Washington and... and...” I stopped. Following another long paper trail and sifting through a mountain of government red tape seemed much too daunting at the moment. I sagged against the wall in the hallway. “Oh, poor Jimmy,” I mumbled.
“Do you suppose she’s the woman in the photograph?” Mrs. Barnett asked.
“She has to be,” I replied. “She signed the picture ‘Love, Gisela.’ If something happened to her, it must have broken Jimmy’s heart.”
“There wasn’t anything else in his bags about this marriage?” Mr. Barnett asked. “No papers or government forms or letters?”
“Just the photograph,” I said. “But I’ll go through everything again with a fine-tooth comb now that we know what we’re looking for.”
Mr. Barnett pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his brow. “Those first weeks that Jim was home, he acted so strangely, remember? I wouldn’t be surprised if he destroyed all the evidence.”
“But he didn’t destroy her picture,” I said. “That must mean something.”
“I don’t understand why he didn’t tell us about her,” Mrs. Barnett said. “He didn’t say anything in his letters about meeting someone, much less marrying her. We’ve always been a close family. You would think...” She shook her head.
