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“And when do you go to Caputh?”
    â€œSoon. As soon as school is out.” I couldn’t wait to go to our summer cottage on the lake near the small village of Caputh. The lake is formed by the Havel River that flows between Berlin and Potsdam to the south. Caputh is not even two hours from Berlin but it seems a world away with its fragrant pines and peacefulness. Papa always says Berlin is for working and Caputh is for dreaming. Einstein also dreamed in Caputh. His summer house was next door to ours.
    â€œAnd we shall have ourselves a sail?”
    â€œA race!” I replied.
    â€œYou always win.” He cocked his head and attempted a look of regret.
    â€œThat’s the idea!”
    He laughed heartily at this, then took his hands from behind his back, jammed the cigar in his teeth, and began to speak around it as he pinched my cheek. “ Liebes Kind , dear child, tell your papa, I saw Hubble and we talked more about that Andromeda discovery he’d made.” He paused. “You see, the Lady in Chains . . .”
    â€œThe Andromeda Galaxy?” Einstein was referring to the myth of the princess Andromeda, for whom the galaxy was named. The spiral arms of the galaxy were said to be the chains that held her as a sacrifice for some monster.
    â€œYes. You know your Greek mythology, I see. Well, as I told your father, Hubble discovered awhile ago that she’s moving away from us.” He paused again. The ashes on the tip of his cigar were stacking up. “I was right about what that meant, there’s no way around it. The universe is expanding.”
    â€œOh,” I replied. I was not going to contradict Einstein, but to me it felt as if the universe was not expanding. It felt as if it was contracting. Hitler, who had been born and lived most of his life in Austria, was now in Germany. The Brown Shirts that were his invention—beer hall brawlers protecting Nazi gatherings in Munich, busting up Communist meetings, desecrating synagogues—were now here in Berlin, in front of Rosa’s and my favorite movie theater! Nothing was receding, as the theory of an expanding universe suggested. It was all coming together in a most awful way.
    The professor walked on, a trail of fine ashes drifting down from the cigar.

chapter 7
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The idea of authority, which they represented, was associated in our minds with a greater insight and a more humane wisdom. But the first death we saw shattered this belief. We had to recognize that our generation was more to be trusted than theirs . . . The first bombardment showed us our mistake, and under it the world as they had taught it to us broke into pieces.
    - Erich Maria Remarque,
All Quiet on the Western Front
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    M ost of the apartment houses on our street were gray and severe like caricatures of the strictest schoolteachers. They stood ramrod straight, but in spring their poker faces were softened a bit by window boxes that spilled with frills of bright flowers. Our building was not gray. It was the color of butter, and an immense patch of ivy spread across the front. If I looked at the ivy a certain way it reminded me of Peter Pan. Well, not Peter himself, but his shadow. Nana the dog caught his shadow when he leaped out the window to escape from the Darling family’s children’s bedroom. This patch of ivy that sprawled across the façade of our building was shaped exactly like a boy who is about to take flight. And our street number is 14, the same address as the Darling family’s house, except of course the fictional family lived in London, England, and not in Berlin. There I can tell you the similarities ended. There was no dog that functioned as a nanny to take care of the children at 14 Haberlandstrasse. We had only a grim Hausmeister , the building superintendent and concierge named Herr Himmel, who lived in the basement. A sour fellow, he greeted all tenants no matter what time