Free Ashes by Kathryn Lasky

together, We two, in our frail boat; The night was calm o’er the wide sea Whereon we were afloat.
    The Specter-Island, the lovely, Lay dim in the moon’s mild glance; There sounded sweetest music, There waved the shadowy dance.
    It sounded sweeter and sweeter, It waved there to and fro; But we slid past forlornly Upon the great sea-flow.
    - Heinrich Heine,
translated by James Thomson
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    â€œL ook! Why don’t they trim their sail?” Uncle Hessie looked toward the small sloop perhaps one hundred meters to our starboard side. It was the morning after our arrival in Caputh. We were out on the lake early to sail. The boat Hessie was looking at with the floppy sails was Einstein’s Tümmler , which means “porpoise.” Professor Einstein was at the tiller and Papa was his crew. I was at the tiller of my boat. Like Einstein’s, mine was a sloop, single-masted, same class—a “snipe”—fourteen feet in length. My boat was called Ratty . People always teased me because it was such an ugly name. But it was the nickname of River Rat, one of my favorite characters from one of my favorite books, The Wind in the Willows, who just loved to mess around in boats.
    At the moment we were not simply messing about but racing. I was the captain and Uncle Hessie was my crew. I was dressed in my old gymnastic culottes, Hosenrock . I looked at Tümmler . Papa wore a straw hat, but Einstein wore a handkerchief on his head knotted at the corners into a square. It looked ridiculous. I had told Papa that he must never wear a knotted handkerchief. It was so old-man-looking and silly, too. We were becalmed, but there was a riffle of wind where they were. Einstein and Papa were not paying attention, though.
    â€œIdiots! Dummköpfe ,” I muttered.
    â€œWell, why don’t they sheet in and take that wind?” Hessie muttered.
    â€œI’ll tell you why. They are too busy gabbing about the universe to see what’s happening on this little lake. Their heads are not in the clouds—they’re in the exosphere, the ionosphere. They are thinking about interplanetary gases and God knows what, but not this wind that we are about to catch! Get ready, Hessie. Here it comes!”
    It was just a slight breeze but Hessie was ready. I kept my eyes glued to the two little ribbons called telltales I had tied to the wire stays of the mast. I had detected a slight quiver, then a flutter. I pushed the tiller a bit to bring Ratty just a sliver closer to this nearly phantom wind. When the two ribbons were streaming parallel to the sail I knew we would be at the proper angle to the wind. In another half minute they were. Gently Hessie trimmed the sail. Soon we were sliding by Tümmler .
    â€œAuf wiedersehen!” Uncle Hessie called, and tipped his crisp white yachting cap to Papa and Einstein. We won the race.
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    It was later the next morning when I saw Hessie coming down the hall with his valise from the guest bedroom.
    â€œUncle Hessie!” I hissed from the door of my bedroom, which I had opened just a crack. “Come here!” I peeked out and beckoned him with my finger. He set down his valise and with exaggerated tiptoeing came over to the door.
    â€œWhat’s up, Liebchen ? A plot? A secret romance?”
    â€œDon’t be silly. It’s just that—well, I’m a little bit worried.”
    â€œWhat about?” He looked genuinely concerned.
    â€œYou, Uncle Hessie.”
    â€œMe?”
    â€œYes.” I sighed. What had happened in Bayerischer Platz when we left Berlin seemed like a million years ago, even though it was only two days before. “I’m worried about—” I hesitated—“well, you know when we left Berlin and those awful SA fellows came up to the car and how you told them you were the president of that . . . that . . .”
    â€œThat made-up company?”
    I nodded. He crooked his finger