海角大神

Her dashing husband is a most unusual exile, a baron who fled from Russia to Germany, trading his own motherland for his own fatherland. She鈥檚 a refugee of another sort, a stifled American aristocrat who comes alive thanks to a healthy bank account and the lush freedoms of 1920s Europe.

But while their romance is thoroughly modern by the standards of their era, the future pushes them away from their sophisticated, upper-class lives.

Baron Heinrich Alexis Nikolai von Hoyningen-Huene will join the German Army. The former Aim茅e Ellis of Hartford, Conn., will聽 lose 鈥� or at least hide 鈥� some of her carefree nature. And they both will be deep mysteries to their daughter until she opens a long-shut box to find her father鈥檚 love letters. Along with other writings, they鈥檙e tickets to a remote man she never knew and a mother she didn鈥檛 fully understand.

To Sigrid MacRae, her 鈥渨orn, hard-pressed,聽 practical鈥� mother turns out to be, in Aim茅e鈥檚 own words, 鈥渉ead-over-heels in love.鈥� And her father, the baron with the endless name, is alive with fun: 鈥淲on鈥檛 this be an historic night: Miss Mayflower flirting with the 鈥楬un,鈥欌�� he jokes in a 1928 letter. An American and a German: Who鈥檇 ever imagine such a thing?

MacRae has many more surprises to come as she unravels the history of her most unusual family. She tells the story, partly her family鈥檚 and partly her own, in the lovely and poignant new book A World Elsewhere: An American Woman in Wartime Germany.

MacRae, who co-authored a previous book about an alliance between American spies and German resisters in World War II, is an elegant writer with a sharp eye for revealing details in the letters left by her parents. She鈥檚 such an appealing companion that readers will forgive her for getting moony at times over the trappings of young love. And in her defense, she may have inherited this trait.

Indeed, the besotted Aim茅e and Heinrich themselves provide the liveliest prose in 鈥淎 World Elsewhere鈥� as they tease each other during their early romance and sound as starry-eyed as Romeo and Juliet.

鈥淚 held up traffic for half an hour,鈥� Heinrich rhapsodizes from Italy, 鈥渉aving fallen into the profoundest of meditations in the middle of the street.... Was any other world so beautiful or any other life so sweet!鈥� Then there鈥檚 Aim茅e, nicknaming a friend 鈥淪queedunk鈥� and raving about how 鈥渓ife is a beautiful dream.鈥�

While they have each other, plus friends for her and family for him, they鈥檙e still outsiders at the home they make in Germany. Heinrich is a Baltic German, from a clan with long-ago German roots and more recent ties to tsarist Russia, and he鈥檚 far from his childhood home in St. Petersburg. Aim茅e is an American on German soil, trying to run a farm, as the Nazis begin to rise and the Depression deepens: 鈥淐onditions have become terrifying.鈥�

Soon, both husband and wife are marching, one fighting for fatherland and one anxiously searching for safety, and 鈥淎 World Elsewhere鈥� becomes a vivid tale of voyages through war-torn Europe.

Aim茅e survives the war and the aftermath. The book includes a photo of her as she visits the Great Wall of China in 1984. Her brilliant smile suggests how far she鈥檚 come from the depressed Hartford girl of her childhood, and it hints at the lovestruck young woman she used to be.

As an adult, MacRae is dazzled by what she learns about her mother鈥檚 past. But one of Aim茅e鈥檚 children 鈥� almost certainly MacRae herself, although she鈥檚 vague 鈥� gets a hint at the age of 7 about what lies beneath when Aim茅e sings a silly song about a 鈥渞ubber dolly.鈥�

鈥淥nce, in the dark ages, this unfailing arbiter of all things had been a little girl, doing childish things, and she had not forgotten how,鈥� McRae writes. 鈥淭he curtain was going up on someone who had always been there, just buried under sadness, exhaustion, and troubles.鈥�

It鈥檚 another reminder that worlds elsewhere are much closer than we think.

Randy Dotinga, a Monitor contributor, is president of the American Society of Journalists and Authors.