The End — & The OTHER End…

When I wrote this draft of “Waltzing in the Snow” I wasn’t sure how to end it. So I wrote two different endings — a short enigmatic ending and an alternative that ties up more of the loose ends. As this is basically a tight first draft, presented in serial form, I hope that readers will let me know which Chapter 17 is more satisfying. Here we go… The End!

 

Chapter 17A: Suitable Words and Actions

Money doesn’t buy happiness or love, but it does make hiring an expensive, international private detective firm to track down a former East German spy possible. Amanda shared the report with Daniel:

Her real name was Astrid Baumann. She was actually five years older than her persona of Candace Gregore. She had worked for the Stassi in East Germany until she ran afoul of her superiors in the secretive agency. She eventually opened a photography supply store and not long after the wall fell, she moved to the Kreuszberg section of Berlin where she has an art gallery. She’s been married for 30 years to a photographer. They have two grown children and three grandchildren.

“Do you want to meet her?” Daniel asked.

“I don’t think so,” Amanda replied. “Candace never really existed. It would be like meeting an actress when you just love the role.”

 

Chapter 17B: Suitable Words and Actions

Money doesn’t buy happiness or love, but it does buy the services of an expensive, international private detective firm to track down a former East German spy. Amanda shared the report with Daniel:

Her real name was Astrid Baumann. She was actually five years older than her persona of Candace Gregore. She had worked for the Stassi in East Germany until she ran afoul of her superiors in the secretive agency. She eventually opened a photography supply store and not long after the wall fell, she moved to the Kreuszberg section of Berlin where she has an art gallery. She’s been married for 30 years to a photographer. They have two grown children and three grandchildren.

“Do you want to meet her?” Daniel asked.

“I think we have to, I mean,” Amanda hesitated. “After all this time, I want to know who she really was. What, if any, of the Candy we knew was real.”

 

Jack Sommer died a few days later. He caught a summer cold that quickly led to pneumonia. The trip to Berlin was delayed until the fall, after Amanda had packed up the house and Daniel decided not to write the screenplay of “Waltzing in the Snow.”

“I can live on the option long enough to write another novel and a play, too. I don’t need the headaches.” He explained to his incredulous agent.

Amanda made all the travel arrangements, booking them into the famous Adlon Hotel by the Brandenburg Gate. Daniel thought the luxury hotel was a crazy waste of money, but Amanda insisted.

“We’re too old to rough it in a little hotel in Kreuzeberg.”

After a long discussion regarding the pros and cons of reaching out to Astrid Baumann in advance, they decided to simply show up at her gallery during business hours. The gallery was on a side street a few blocks from Hermannplatz.

A young woman with a long, thick, dark braid hanging down her back stood looking into the gallery’s window. She wore jeans and a leather jacket. For a second, Amanda thought she’d traveled back in time, as well as across the ocean, to find her old friend unchanged. But when the girl turned around, she was clearly not Candace/Astrid. A sleeping baby was hanging from a carrier on the young woman’s chest.

“Guten Morgen,” Amanda said.

“Good morning,” the girl replied with a pleasant tone and a near perfect American accent. “May I help you?”

“Yes, we’re looking for…” Daniel paused. “We’re looking for Astrid Baumann.”

“That’s my mother. She’s in the gallery. I’m Angelika.”

Angelika led the way into the gallery. Calling out in German to her mother. A man rolled out of the back room in a wheelchair and said something to Angelika.

“My father does not speak English,” Angelika explained. “She’ll be out in a minute. Just making coffee in the back.”

Angelika’s resemblance to the Candace Gregore of their college days was uncanny. Amanda wanted to throw her arms around the young woman, but when Astrid Baumann emerged from the backroom of her gallery holding a cup of coffee, Amanda felt all the oxygen in the room disappear.

It was Candy. But it was not.

Astrid brushed away tears as she walked forward to embrace Daniel and then Amanda.

“I never thought,” she paused. “I dreamt, but never thought I would see you two again. I felt so lost.” She sighed. “This is my husband, Leo, and you have met my daughter Angelika and little Annette. I have a son, too, Klaus, and Klaus has two boys — twins.”

After a few awkward moments, Astrid suggested that the three of them go to a nearby café to talk.

“Leo will take care of the gallery. I want to talk to you, to explain.”

“We know what you were, what you did….” Amanda said. “We just don’t…”

“You don’t know who I really was, how I really felt about you, about all of you…” Astrid finished Amanda’s sentence. “I can only try to explain it. I cannot excuse what I did — how I hurt you. It was not my choice. None of it.”

They settled down at a quiet table at the back of a café. The coffee came with cookies and the invitation to linger much longer than at any similar place in New York. Seen in the sunlight streaming in from a courtyard window, Astrid looked old. Evidence of hard life was on her face. For a little while they caught up on the facts of the current lives. The children, husbands, former husbands, the death of Amanda’s father, the planned German translation of “Waltzing in the Snow.”

“I will read it in English, Daniel. No need for me to wait.”

When there was a lull in the conversation, it was Astrid, who chose to speak of the elephant in the room.

“I was very young when the Stassi recruited me. It was because I’d shown an affinity for learning foreign languages. At first I spied on foreigners in the GDR. Then they turned me into an international spy. Candace was the creation of the top spymasters of the East. But once I got to New York, once I became her, the lines between me and my role as Candace began to blur. I loved my life there. I loved all of you. At first I had to pretend so much and then…. And then I didn’t. I was her.”

“Until Jack discovered the truth,” Daniel interjected.

“I was already planning my departure. I was going to tell all of you that I was running off to South America. I would have sent a postcard or two and then let Candace fade in your memories.”

“But my father couldn’t let that happen.”

“No, Amanda, he needed me to be gone and quickly. The CIA man reminded me of the Stassi men, of the Russian spymasters, too. He “fixed” the problem. Your father told him to fix it so that all of you thought I’d run off with a Russian drug dealer I’d met at the restaurant or arrange for a letter from me to come from Argentina, but… But he had another idea. I didn’t know what he’d done until years later when I looked at my own Stassi file.”

“Did you know he killed another girl to protect you?” Daniel asked.

“No, not until long after when one of my former colleagues used it to show how disreputable the Americans were. I knew that killer, that beast was not even a CIA agent. He was some kind of criminal, like the goons that beat Leo when he was a dissident in the East.”

“Your husband was an East German dissident?”

“Yes, Leo was a young writer and photographer, a rebel. I fell in love with him, and the Stassi turned on me. It’s all history now. All dead and gone and good riddance; I like my life now.”

Amanda and Astrid laughed about both owning photography galleries, and after Daniel suggested lunch and something a bit stronger than coffee, Amanda reached into her large bag and pulled out a box, placing it with care on the table.

“This is yours.”

Astrid opened the box. It was her old Rollieflex.

“My old friend,” Astrid stroked the camera as tears streamed down her cheeks. “I’ve missed you so.”