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Page 10.
 After refreshments, the Gillens took their guests out into the backyard to show them the view (green and pretty) of the valley with the tiny Petrusse stream flowing far below, and those granite cliffs that had once held gun emplacements in the age of gunpowder, knee breeches, and tri-cornered hats. Like most Luxemburgers, the Gillens were avid gardeners and planted flowers, hedges, and fruit trees in every available cranny. The house itself was stone, over two centuries old, with mossy streaks vertically flowing in generations of rainfalls over gray stucco.
“Yes,” explained Professor Gillen, who taught Classics at the University of Luxembourg nearby. “Our family emigrated here during the Napoleonic era from Belgium. My ancestor was an engineer in the Department of Forests, as the French called this region before Napoléon Bonaparte was defeated, and everyone met in Vienna in 1815 to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Our name meant something like ‘waffles’ in Flemish, so my ancestor assumed a more Luxembourgeois name, and we became la famille Gillen.”
Elise, who had a dry sense of humor behind those shy, veiled eyes, said: “He was going to us the House of Luxembourg, but the name was already taken.”
They all laughed, imagining the sorts of penalties one might suffer for usurping an aristocratic title back in the days when such things mattered far more than they did now. Papa explained that the House of Luxembourg had ceased to exist during the 1600s, and the current Grand Ducal family are most closely related to the House and Duchy of Nassau in Germany. Elise’s father laughed and said: “I’m glad that we will never again be mistaken for waffles.”
Banter continued in a light and congenial get-together. Elise’s parents liked Hannah and her boyfriend, and Rob showed every sign of getting on okay with Yves, in a manly and fist-bumping manner.
In fact, as Hannah figured these things naturally and inevitably played out, Elise was already making signs of wanting to take Hannah window-shopping among some wonderful small but ritzy shops in the city, while Rob and Yves were hot on the topic of a scheduled Berlin-Vienna Fussball game, which Prof. Gillen offered to watch with them in a sports bar near the Place Guilleaume. That square, in the center of the Haute-Ville, was sort of your classical tree-lined, cobblestone square from any old European city, even complete with a small shop-lined passage at one end leading from the Guilleaume II Square to the Rue du Curé; typically Luxemburgish, probably the tiniest such passage anywhere in the world.
Hannah found that you had to get used to conversing in at least three languages for everyday affairs; like you could wish someone guden Owend (similar to German guten Abend) for good evening, but you could just as well use the French bon soir, and nobody would bat an eyelash. For good day, everyone said bonjour. You might say muergen for morning, or the similar-sounding moien for mid-day (as in French moyen meaning middle, she supposed). It was enough to make Hannah’s head spin.
It was understood that Hannah and Rob needed time to examine their Dad’s papers in the briefcase. They sat together alone in the dining room. Mme. Gillen cleared away used dishes, and served fresh coffee.
“Wow,” Hannah said time and again as she picked up one familiar photograph or piece of paper after another.
“My first grade report card,” Rob said at one point.
“My Girl Scout badges,” Hannah said at another moment.
“Why do you suppose he labeled his journal with a Roman numeral three?” Rob asked.
Hannah shook her head. “Maybe there were two others before that, and we may find them or not.”
Rob took a closer look at the opening pages of the notebook. “Looks like he just starts kind of abruptly here in the 1980s. But he seems to indicate he was continuing from a previous journal.” He pointed at a smeared, inky scribble along the upper edge of the opening cardstock cover. “He says here ETS and then return to CONUS.” He rapped himself on the forehead lightly with his knuckles as if that would shake his brain into thinking more clearly. “I think CONUS is a military expression for Continental United States. I’ve seen that in some books.”
“What is ETS then?”
Rob slowly shook his head, mystified.
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