The Puzzle King

Praise for
The Puzzle King

“The kernel of Betsy Carter’s third novel,
The Puzzle King
, is a powerful bit of family lore … A work of genealogical fiction from the late 19th century to the eve of World War II … It balances the Jewish immigrant experience in New York—both the achievement of the American dream and the curdling of it—against the insidious anti-Semitism of Germany and Eastern Europe.”

—
Los Angeles Times

“Skillfully using ties to her own family, Carter weaves a compelling story and a rich, multilayered novel around three Jewish sisters and deftly captures the squalor and bustle of early 20th century New York … A masterful puzzle, a fine novel with twists and turns and pieces that interlock tightly.
The Puzzle King
is Carter at her best.”

—
The Miami Herald

“Carter’s third novel is all the more poignant for its provenance.”

—
People

“Everybody loves an inspiring rags-to-riches story, and
The Puzzle King
delivers that in spades … [It] manages to tell the immigrant story from a uniquely relationship-and family-based perspective, all the while honoring their bravery and stoicism in the face of great odds.”

—
San Francisco Book Review

“Tracks the differing responses immigrants have to America’s open arms and turned-up noses.”

—
The New York Times

“It’s a rare treat when a novel’s literary merit can compete with its capacity to entertain, but Betsy Carter, who’s slam-dunked it before with
Swim to Me
and
The Orange Blossom Special
, has netted another winner with
The Puzzle King
… Carter, a consummate storyteller, cobbles declarative sentences from diction so unexpected that readers rush from one vivid image and scene to the next until the book’s characters, their culture and the caveats of their existence are as real as anyone and anything has ever been.”

—
The Louisville Courier-Journal

“A wonderful story, overflowing with history, intrigue, bravery, and redemption.”

—Examiner.com

“A vibrant portrait of a time and some unexpectedly courageous people.”

—
BookPage

“A tale of immigrants succeeding despite the odds, a passionate marriage, sisters who love each other despite their differences, and bravery in the face of ultimate evil. The characters feel real because they are—the story’s based on true-life events you’ll ponder long after the final page.”

—
Parenting

“A beautiful tale of one family’s experiences in America and Germany prior to the start of World War II … Carter’s lyrical prose captures the era and retains a personal touch …
The Puzzle King
is an engaging and moving novel.”

—
The Salisbury (NC) Post

“Readers will be swept away with the story … With spiraling tension and a fearless ending that leaves one breathless, the author has created a rich, multilayered novel.”

—
Mobile Press-Register

“
The Puzzle King
is an engrossing and especially timely novel.”

—
The East Hampton Star

“Betsy Carter writes with deep drama and astute historical validity.”

—
Knoxville News Sentinel

“A poignant story of love, longing, and the truths of family connectedness.”

—
Booklist
, starred review

“A moving tale … Drawing on family legends (no one could invent a story line like this one), Carter deftly paints a panoramic portrait of life during the turbulent 1930s. The pieces of her gripping story fit together so neatly that they cannot easily be torn apart. Highly recommended.”

—
Library Journal
, starred review

“Betsy Carter has written a haunting and stirring story of heroism in the shadow of horror.
The Puzzle King
is a deeply human drama, a powerfully affecting novel that enriches history by giving a face to the faceless whose lives hung in the balance as the holocaust approached.”

—Ron Rosenbaum, author of
Explaining Hitler
and
The Shakespeare Wars

The Puzzle King

Also by BETSY CARTER

Swim to Me

The Orange Blossom Special

Nothing to Fall Back On:
The Life and Times of a Perpetual Optimist

a novel by

BETSY CARTER

Published by
ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL
Post Office Box 2225
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225

a division of
WORKMAN PUBLISHING
225 Varick Street
New York, New York 10014

© 2009 by Betsy Carter.
All rights reserved.
First paperback edition, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, November
2010. Originally published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill in 2009.
Printed in the United States of America.
Published simultaneously in Canada by Thomas Allen & Son Limited.
Design by Anne Winslow.

This is a work of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary
perceptions and insights are based on experience, all names, characters,
places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination
or are used fictitiously.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Carter, Betsy, [date]
The puzzle king : a novel / by Betsy Carter.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-56512-594-0 (HC)
1. Jews—Germany—History—1933–1945—Fiction.
2. Immigrants—New York (State)—New York—Fiction.
3. Family—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3603.A7768P89 2009

813’.6—dc22             2009021152

ISBN 978-1-61620-016-9 (PB)

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
First Paperback Edition

For F.E. and M.E
.

The Puzzle King

O
N A
M
ARCH MORNING IN
1936, an American woman in her forties named Flora Phelps stood in line at the American consulate in Stuttgart, Germany.

For these times, in this place, this was an extraordinary fact. But Flora gave the people in line even more reasons to stare. For one thing, she was beautiful. While they all wore drab, ill-fitting clothes and the weariness of terrible times on their faces, Flora wore a floral-patterned silk dress that accentuated her ample curves. The raspberry-colored cloche she wore drew attention to her eager brown eyes. Vanities such as this had all but disappeared in Germany.

She carried an envelope and a bundle wrapped in brown paper tied up with twine. Anyone who saw the way she held the package, with both arms around it, understood that whatever was inside had everything to do with her visit here on this day.

When it came her turn to speak with the consul, he was immediately taken with her. Flora was as charming as she was beautiful, and it wasn’t long before she and the consul were engaged
in a conversation that went far beyond the parameters of his station. The talk turned to Flora’s relatives. Flora was born to a Jewish family in Germany, and, as a young girl, was sent with her older sister to America, where she lived in a prosperous suburb with her aunt and uncle. Her other relatives stayed behind. Only a miracle would get them out of Hitler’s Germany now.

D
IRE TIMES BREED
unexpected heroes. Flora was one of them.

Three years to the day after Simon Phelps was born, his father died unexpectedly. Simon’s mother told him it had to do with a vision his father had right before his death: “He saw you being snatched up in the claws of a giant bird and taken away. He ran after the bird with his hands grasping at the air hoping to save you, but you were already lost to him. The stones of sorrow set heavy in his heart until, eventually, they crushed him.”

Simon had no memories of his father, only a black, formless guilt that his birth was responsible for his father’s death. Sometimes he would try to reach back into memory and draw a picture of him, but all that surfaced was the image of a small man disappearing underneath the weight of large stones. He sketched everything before him—his mother cooking, his sister braiding her hair, the maple trees at the botanical garden—and he drew other things that existed only in his imagination. He hoped that by re-creating what he saw inside his head, the image of his father would untangle and present itself to him.

Before she sent Simon away from Vilna, his mother bought him a notebook and some colored crayons. Only a mother who understood how much her son relied on his imagination would indulge in that kind of extravagance.

The family got by with little. She supported her seven children by taking in sewing: jackets, dresses, and pants with seams so worn that the wind blew through them. Of course she made all their clothing, which was passed down from one child to the next.

The future seemed as bleak and tattered as the clothes she tried to mend. It took months for her to scrape up the eight dollars it would cost to send Simon, her youngest and, in her mind, smartest, child to America, where she was certain he would find a better life. Vilna was no place for a child, not now, in 1892, when a knock on the door at the crack of dawn or in the middle of the day could mean that any boy over twelve would be taken away and sent into the army. It could be months or even years before his family would hear from him again. Or maybe never, if he was Jewish.

She promised him that she and his six brothers and sisters would follow. Someday, she told him, after he’d made some money and had a house, he’d be able to afford to bring them to America. “You must be brave for all of us,” she’d said, turning her face away from his. To herself, she repeated the prayer that God would help him find his way. Her God would reunite them soon. She had to believe that.

Because he could take only what he could carry, she agonized over what else besides the notebooks and crayons she should pack in his satchel. She made the choice to include her apron because she wanted something he could touch and smell, and for her own
selfish reasons, it gave her comfort to think that at night he might roll the apron into a ball and rest his head on it. The thought of how it felt to run her fingers though his wavy hair before he fell asleep hurt her heart, so she moved on to worrying about more practical matters. She stuck in a few coins she had saved because she’d heard that he could trade them in at the money exchange when he got to Ellis Island. She also packed a brown-and-white checked sweater vest that she had knit for him.

For weeks before he left on his voyage, she told him things about America. Of course, no one who had gone there had ever come back to Vilna, so everything she told him was based on rumor, scant pieces of knowledge, or what she wanted to believe was true. “You must dress well in America, everyone there does,” she said. “It is important that you go to school and get an education. With an education, you can do anything. And it’s important to keep your chest warm and stand up straight.”

Simon’s mother was not a typical Litvak mother. She was a warm, embracing woman, stout and tall for her generation. The last time he saw her, he was just tall enough so that when he leaned into her, his head nestled in the crook of her arm. He was nine years old.

A
T NINE, SIMON
was a runt of a boy, the kind who could easily have been swallowed up by the squalor and homesickness that consumed him. When the first-class passengers would throw nuts and oranges down below to steerage, he refused to get on his hands and knees like the others in order to grovel for the prizes. Instead, he’d turn away and put his hands over his ears to tune out the laughter from the people above them. It wasn’t as easy to ignore the stench of rotten food, sweat, feces, and urine that
stung his eyes and clogged his throat. It was so crowded that when passengers got seasick, more often than not they would lean over and vomit on another passenger before they could make it to a window or landing. When his own stomach ran sour, Simon searched for a place to be sick in private. Only once had he lost control and puked on someone else’s shoes, and the memory of it, years later, still made his face go red.