For Such a Time (15 page)

He always seemed to be taking care of her. The new awareness made her cheeks warm, and as if on cue he raised his head and smiled knowingly. “I’m pleased to see your color back, Fräulein.”

As he rose from the floor, he winced slightly. Again she wondered at the true extent of his injuries—both physical and emotional.

He helped her into her new coat, then brushed her hands away when she fumbled with the new buttons. “Let me,” he said and deftly finished the task. Again she noticed his hands, strong and capable, the skin bronzed and the backs lightly dusted with russet.

“Come.” He pressed the black kid gloves at her before leading her out through the kitchen. At the back door, Aric grabbed his greatcoat from a row of pegs against the wall. Then he snatched up a gray wool scarf and knit cap. “Helen won’t mind if you borrow these.” He winked at the housekeeper, who had glanced up from washing dishes to beam at him.

After fitting the scarf snugly around Stella’s neck, he plucked away the red wig and tugged the knit cap firmly over her ears. “Now you won’t have to worry about losing your head.”

Stella smiled before the blast of cold air outside hit her cheeks. Aric took a moment on the landing to instruct Grossman and then pulled her along through the calf-deep snow toward a rise of bare-limbed poplars surrounding the deeper woods.

At the tree line, snow fell softly, surrounding them in a deafening hush. Against the Ceaseless White, tufts of steam billowed into the air from their labored breathing, mingling with the crystalline flakes that swirled around their shoulders.

Time slept, like the flowers drowsing beneath the ice, and the wild creatures dreaming peacefully inside their caves. It was a
leap year, the second month of
Adar
—early March—yet spring still lay hidden. How could it be that in a matter of weeks, seeds would sprout, rivers would thaw, and forests fill with the urgent chatter of squirrels and the crows’ menacing caws?

Aric lifted his face to the falling snow. “This country reminds me much of Austria. Don’t you agree?”

Pulled from her reverie, Stella grimaced. She hated lying to him, especially in such a pristine setting. “It does seem like home”—she spoke the truth, as it did remind her of Mannheim—“but I spent much time in the city.”

Deliberating whether to broach the subject of his past, she finally asked, “What was it like, living in the country?”

He glanced off toward the trees. “Thaur is the most beautiful place on earth.” He spoke in a reverent tone that surprised her. “I was the son of a baron, who was also a gentleman farmer.” He shot her a wry look. “Which is a pursuit of the titled wealthy when there is no wealth. Anyway, it suited my father. He loved commingling with the earth, feeling the dark soil between his fingers.”

She saw the sorrow he tried to hide behind a smile.

“I had no such love of dirt,” he continued. “When I was a boy about Joseph’s age, I preferred to ride into the forest each day on the back of an old nag my father kept for heavy work. He even made me a small bow and a set of arrows, hoping to encourage me to hunt. I preferred playing games.”

He grinned, and his sudden faint color surprised her.

“I pretended to be the son of a rich king, fearing no one as I went off in search of the fabled Magical River.”

“Magical River?”

“You don’t know the story?” When she shook her head, he explained, “A fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm. My mother often told it to me before bedtime. A king’s fearless son goes in search of an apple from the tree of life and a golden ring with unimaginable power. He finds both and also recruits a faithful
lion as his companion. The prince has promised the apple to a giant, but when the giant also demands the golden ring, the prince, with unbelievable strength, fights and defeats his enemy. He himself is wounded in the battle, and the lion takes him to the Magical River to be healed.

“Afterward, the prince comes upon a haunted castle with a maiden imprisoned behind its walls. He must spend three nights in the place and show no fear, uttering no sound, despite the horrors, in order to break the enchantment and save her.”

He paused. “Well?” Stella demanded, eager to hear the rest of the tale. “Did he do it? Did the king’s son save her?”

“He did. And each of the three mornings, after the devils that ruled the place tried to terrify him and beat him to death, the maiden came and washed his wounds with water from the Magical River.”

His expression took on a faraway look. “I never told my father, but for a long time while my mother lay sick, I’d go out on that old nag in search of the Magical River, hoping to bring her back the healing waters.”

Stella couldn’t help but ache for his loss. “I was just a child when I lost both of my parents,” she said. “It’s a terrible feeling to know you can’t help them, that you can’t change things back to the way they once were.”

He met her gaze. “I’m glad you understand,” he whispered.

“What happened . . . afterward?”

“My mother died and I was forced to grow up.” He brushed at the white flakes gathering on top of Stella’s cap. “I went to the local school and worked the farm with my father until I had an opportunity to attend preparatory classes in Bonn. He took it hard when I left—he wanted me to remain in Austria. But already I had dreams of grandeur.

“In Bonn, I got caught up in the frenzy of Hitler Jugend, the new Resistance to create a perfect state. Everyone was promised prosperity. I thought to change my poor but noble father’s
situation and soften his attitude toward me.” Bitterness edged his voice as he added, “After graduation, I enlisted in the Wehrmacht. I decided the infantry was where I should be.”

Stella observed the shadows beneath his eyes, the sorrow etched into the corners of his mouth. In the fairy tale, the prince had only to endure the demons inside the castle for three days.

Aric seemed to live with them constantly.

Had the world been a different place, they might be on a first date, taking a stroll in the winter woods. Aric would have freed her from an enchanted castle, and in return she would have healed him with magical waters. Prodded by some unknown force, they huddled closer together, oblivious to the gentle falling of snow and the tangible stillness around them. The sun, hidden behind sullen clouds, made the air appear silvery gray.

“I have a present for you.” He withdrew a cloth-wrapped bundle from his coat pocket and held it out to her. “I was going to surprise you with it later, but . . .” His lopsided grin struck her heart like a well-aimed snowball.

“Another gift?” She pulled away the cloth to reveal a jewelry case of shiny white porcelain, trimmed in gold and inlaid with pink and blue roses. When she opened the lid, the lilting notes of the “Blue Danube Waltz” broke the silence around them. “It’s lovely,” she breathed.

“It was my mother’s. The music is my favorite. Maybe it will become yours, too.”

Overwhelmed by the intimately personal gift, she reached to touch his cheek. It went against her conscience, defied even her bloodlines—yet she felt something for this man. He’d broken through her resistance, made her feel decent and human again, all the way down to her bones. It had been such a long time . . .

“Kiss me,” he whispered. “This time no tricks, I promise.”

Luminous flakes fell from a ragged sky, their only audience as he drew her close, the music box pressed between them. Stella ignored her numbing cheeks and nose as she leaned into him,
knowing she shouldn’t want to kiss him as badly as she did. Her own people would damn her; she would be a traitor to every Jew crushed beneath the Nazis’ boot. Yet any objection she might have offered escaped her as Aric tipped her chin to search her face. With his mouth descending toward hers, she closed her eyes, anticipating his kiss . . .

The scream of a train’s whistle tore through the air, jerking them apart. Stella turned to stare from the top of the rise at the train station of Bohusovice, where insidious cattle cars rolled to a stop behind an engine billowing steam. A bedraggled horde of Jews disembarked, trudging the miserable distance to the fortress gate amidst shouts from the guards.

Standing to the left of the train were exactly 1,840 souls ready to take their place.
Good-bye, Mina.

———

Aric’s pulse raced like a bullet. He watched Stella, waiting for her reaction. When it finally came, he wasn’t surprised. The dove’s eyes turned to him filled with accusation. She tipped her chin, just as she always did when she was furious. Her lower lip trembled.

“I appreciate the gift, Herr Kommandant, but I cannot accept such an extravagance. It wouldn’t be right.”

She shoved the music box back at him. It felt dull and lifeless in his hands.

“I’m cold. I want to go inside now,” she said, then quickly turned to stumble back down the hill toward the house.

Aric didn’t try to stop her. He’d seen the inevitability of his folly reflected in her eyes, a look of despair so hideously different from the blazing resolve she once offered him.

Frustration seized him, and he roared with it, but his rain of curses fell heavy and still against a quiet, snow-packed earth.

The spell had been broken.

“What have you found, Sonntag?” Captain Hermann trekked through the snow toward his young corporal.

Sonntag crouched beside the white drift beneath the window of Hermann’s burnt-out office. “I discovered this, Herr Captain.” He handed Hermann a rations tin. “Only a thin layer of powder fell last night, so we can make out at least one set of prints. Extremely large ones. They lead across the street and down along the far end of the building.” The corporal pointed toward the old barracks.

“Unfortunately they disappear into an area where heavy foot traffic turned the snow into slush.” He glanced up at his captain. “There are more prints here, much smaller and indistinct, which run in the same direction. And these boot prints”—he pointed to another set—“could easily belong to the sentry who stood watch along this alley.”

Hermann grunted, glaring at the conspicuous sets of tracks. He pocketed the rations tin and then fished a cigarette from inside his black leather coat. An aide hurried forward with a match and lit it for him.

He drew smoke into his lungs and looked up into a swollen gray sky. The calm he sought began easing over him; he took another long puff before ridding himself of an overpowering urge to hit someone.

Arson, without question. Hermann easily recognized the larger set of footprints—just as it had taken little time in scouring his gutted office this morning to discover the phony cross in its charred frame. Formality made him question Koch and Brucker, yet there were few men at Theresienstadt who had the audacity to pull off such a stunt. It took the kind of courage his own men lacked, a certain amount of grit that earned a soldier such a prize as the Grand Cross.

Elimination of the problem was out of the question, at least for the moment. He couldn’t afford to jeopardize his position with the commandant or Berlin by killing the only remaining
Elder in the Judenrat—not with the Red Cross inspection coming up. Besides, death would only martyr that Schwein
.

Hermann took another drag off his cigarette. The Jew had been trouble from his first day at Theresienstadt, refusing to show proper respect. Even regular beatings had failed to cure that Semitic pride. His conceit was reminiscent of the Jew filth living in Hermann’s hometown of Leipzig, lording their wealth and status over them all like a sour teat to suckling brats—

“Herr Captain?”

Hermann turned to face his all-but-forgotten corporal. “Sonntag, find the Jew, Mordecai Benjamin. Bring him to me for questioning.”

Sonntag offered a hasty salute, then dashed off toward the prisoners’ barracks.

Hermann crushed the cigarette in his fist and tossed it into the drift. His interrogation would require more than the usual degree of technique. Not only was the crime serious—the destruction of German property—but the criminal wasn’t easily broken.

Hermann almost smiled as he slogged through the snow toward his temporary office in the garrison.
Well, pig, let’s see how loud you
squeal.

 16 

Mordecai found out about the plot and told Queen Esther, who in turn reported it to the king. . . .

Esther 2:22

S
he was desperate for a bath, a shower, anything to wash away the shame.

Brushing past Grossman at the back porch, Stella burst into the kitchen, slamming the door behind her. She wrenched off her new coat and gloves, followed by the borrowed knitted cap and shawl, shoving them onto pegs alongside her red wig.

She hadn’t saved them. Anna was gone, now Mina . . .

Heat from the oven wrapped the house in a cocoon of fragrant smells, baked apples and spice, and the sounds of liquid boiling on the stove kept cadence with the
tick tick
tick
of a hand-wound timer. Stella hardly noticed as she stormed from the kitchen toward the sanctuary of her room, and a bath.

She met the housekeeper on the landing, blocking her path. It seemed appropriate that above a pretty lemon-colored neckerchief, Helen wore her usual sour look.

Stella leaned against the banister. “What do you want?” she demanded, then felt foolish for expecting Helen to answer. “Sorry, I . . . I’m upset. I didn’t mean to take it out on you. Please let me pass.”

Helen refused to yield.

Stella met the formidable housekeeper’s scowl—a woman not so heartless as to let a child’s wound go untended or his belly go without food. So why did Helen despise her? Stella had committed no offense, at least that she knew of. And her friendly overtures had all been rejected. Did the woman believe her a threat to the colonel, or did she imagine Stella was his mistress? That notion made her angrier. The last thing she needed was Helen’s misguided judgment of her. “Please,” she said impatiently. “Get out of my way—”

Helen cut her off, thrusting a small package at her.

Stella took it. “Where did you get this?”

Helen’s frown turned fierce.

Stella held on to her temper. “Just indicate yes or no. Did you get this from Joseph?”

Nothing.

It dawned on Stella that the day’s firewood had not yet been collected. How had she received a message already? “He was inside the ghetto yesterday, wasn’t he?” she asked uneasily.

For an instant, Helen’s stony expression faltered. Apprehension swept through Stella. “Is he all right?”

Helen hesitated, then nodded.

“Did he return last night?”

This time Helen shook her head, jabbing an index finger toward the floor.

“This morning?” No wonder Joseph was exhausted! “Take me to him, please.”

It was a moment before Helen’s tight-lipped scowl relaxed. She motioned Stella toward another door off the kitchen that led to the back of the house.

Joseph’s room was cast in shadow. A white sheet had been tacked over the only window inside the compact space. Helen stood at the door while Stella entered. Her eyes soon adjusted enough to detect the undersized lump buried beneath blankets
on a bed against the far wall. Quietly she eased onto the edge of his mattress. A milk crate disguised as a nightstand rested beside the bed. Joseph’s colored marbles lay scattered across its top.

Stella worked her hands over the boy’s limbs, gently so as not to awaken him. She was relieved to find him still whole and unbroken. “I’m so happy you’re back, little man,” she murmured.

He didn’t hear her, nor did his sleeping presence give her any real comfort. She knew that death awaited the Jews at the station outside the ghetto. Would Joseph one day be forced to board that train?

Stella reached to brush back his silken curls. Restless, he turned his head, revealing the angry scar where his ear had been.

Brutality is the Nazis’ wheel,
crushing everything in its path
. Was that what Aric tried to explain to her? Had the monsters become victims to their own destruction—killing with such ease and abandon that now, like cannibals, they preyed on each other? That meant no one was safe. Not even Aric.

Stella kissed the top of Joseph’s head, vowing again to protect him. “Sleep well, kaddishel,” she whispered, rising from the bed.

Helen stood at the door, a suspicious gleam in her sherry-colored eyes. The brusque housekeeper had never shown a softer side, except for the smiles she gave Joseph and the colonel. “Have you already opened this?” Stella held up the parcel.

Helen shook her head.

“Will you inform Herr Kommandant?” Stella eyed the other woman steadily, recalling the colonel’s threat about deceit of any kind. He would send her to the ghetto in chains—or worse—if he learned of her deception.

Again Helen shook her head. Pointing toward the boy’s sleeping form, she placed a fist over her heart.

For the boy, then, she would keep Stella’s secret.

They formed a silent truce in that moment; each understood her precarious situation, as well as a responsibility to protect the child with her life. Stella resisted an impulse to embrace
her new co-conspirator, unwilling to disrupt their fragile new balance. “I’ll be in my room. Please let Joseph know I want to see him when he awakens.”

Upstairs, she locked herself in the bathroom and turned on the shower. Leaning against the sink, Stella untied the package. Her uncle’s Grand Cross slipped from the damp paper. Stella clutched the medal like a talisman as she read his familiar scrawl on the wrapping.

Stunned, she read, and then reread, Morty’s adamant praises of the colonel. Laughter rose in her throat at his colorful tale involving Aric’s visit to the ghetto kitchen. She sensed the relish in her uncle’s words as he crowed over Brucker’s humiliation. Her breath caught in the next instant as she read the words,
You can thank my
secretary.

An image of Aric standing alone on the hill pierced Stella with unwanted regret. He’d professed no compassion, yet with a simple edict like that of a grand king he’d eased the plight of thousands.

Murder.
The word jumped out at her as she read about the intended plot Morty overheard.
Tonight, stay close to the
commandant
, he wrote,
as you are both in grave danger.
My dearest daughter, they suspect you are Jew.

Stella’s hands shook as she folded the paper into a thumb-sized square. Her dazed senses tried to digest the planned details of her own murder as she moved from the sink to dispose of the letter. Like the first, this missive was just as dangerous to keep.

Still, she hesitated. What if the worst happened, and she and Aric were found dead the next morning? Morty’s message could be useful in implicating Hermann and the others—if a Jew’s word could be believed.

The idea consoled her. Whether retribution for the sake of Joseph or her uncle or both, she needed to feel that some justice in this godless war would be served. Clutching the wad of paper, along with Morty’s Grand Cross, Stella turned off the shower and returned to her room.

The Bible lay on the nightstand beside her bed. Someone had been inside her room again.

A knock at the door made her jump. She quickly hid the Cross and letter beneath her mattress. “Come in.”

She expelled a relieved breath. “Joseph.”

“Morty said you were in danger.” He rushed to her, his features pale. She caught him in her arms and held him tight. “What can we do?”

“
We
can do nothing, little man. But I must somehow convince Herr Kommandant of this treachery . . . without revealing my source.” She leaned back to examine him. “Why were you in the ghetto?”

“Herr Kommandant made all the children move boxes . . . to the river. Before the Red Cross arrives.”

“Boxes?”

“Ashes.”

A chill as brittle as the winter wind swept through her. She could never forget the tiny charred flakes soaring from Dachau’s Krematorium. Souls of Jews . . .

“I gave Morty your last letter,” he said.

Stella was relieved to change the subject. “That’s how you found out about this . . . this plot?”

Joseph nodded. “Morty jumped from a second-story window!” His eyes grew round. “And he set fire to Herr Captain’s office . . .”

But Stella barely heard the boy’s rendition of her uncle’s dangerous escapade. Arson! What if Hermann found out it was her uncle? Morty would be a dead man. “Why was he there in the first place?”

Joseph scrunched his shoulders. “I don’t know. When will you tell Herr Kommandant?”

Heavy boot steps echoed up the stairs. “I suppose right now.” She released him. “Go now, before he starts asking you questions.”

He hesitated at the door, anxiety creasing his young features.

“All will be well, kaddishel
.
” She forced a smile. “I’ll convince him.”

Joseph opened the door and nearly collided with the colonel. Aric stood on the threshold, still wearing his sweater and slacks. A lock of hair fell against his forehead, softening the hard-edged angles of his face. His eyes fixed on her as he said, “I see you’re out of bed already, Joseph. Hungry?”

“Ja, Herr Kommandant.”

He glanced down at the boy. “I’ve asked Helen to prepare
Kaiserschmarren
—it was my favorite when I was your age. You like powdered sugar and stewed fruit, yes?”

Clearly astonished, the boy nodded.

Aric smiled at him. “Go and eat. I need to speak with Fräulein.”

“Danke, Herr Kommandant.” Joseph wasted no time squeezing past him.

“May I come in?”

Again she felt the full impact of his gaze. “Of course, Herr Kommandant.”

“I liked ‘Aric’ much better.” He entered the room. In one hand he carried the music box she’d rejected. The other supported his weight with the cane. Climbing hills in deep snow must have left him exhausted and in pain.

He kicked the door shut behind him. Stella’s heart raced with the same conflicting emotions she felt each time he was with her.

“Why did you leave me outside?”

“You need to ask?” she questioned.

“I need to know why you’re so angry. The train?”

She gave a nod. “I typed the deportation lists for Auschwitz. Those people will likely die, and I did nothing to help them.” Her throat worked with frustration. “You say you cannot help them, either.”

“But you don’t believe me.” He made a grim face. “You think I’ve been courting you with excuses so that . . . what”—he advanced toward her—“I can seduce you into my bed?”

“Of course not! I just meant—”

“Or maybe I should martyr myself for your Jews. Would that be enough truth?” He came to a halt in front of her. “It won’t change facts, Stella. Long after my carcass lies in the ground, your Jews will still board those trains. They will still die.”

He reached around her to place the music box on the nightstand. He noticed the Bible. “Do you pray often?” he asked, retrieving it.

Jarred by the shift in conversation, she blinked. “Not anymore. Do you?”

He shook his head as he studied the book in his hand. “Once my mother died, it seemed pointless. The miracle I’d asked for didn’t happen.”

“The magical waters?”

He smiled at her. “Something like that.”

Stella thought it ironic that she and Aric stood on opposite sides of the war, yet God chose to ignore them both. At least He didn’t take sides. “I used to pray,” she offered, “for an end to the war, and all its suffering and degradation . . .” Her gaze locked with his. “But God lets it continue while good people suffer and die.”

“They do,” he agreed. “Would you have me die, as well?”

“Nein!” Then, surprised at her vehemence, she added, “I don’t want anyone to die.”

“But as you said, the war
does
go on. You can’t have it both ways, my dove. Man or martyr, which will I be? You must choose.”

Her whole being ached as though bruised from the inside out. She searched his face. “You would abide by my decision? Die for this cause?”

“Would you?”

She flinched. How much courage had it really taken to distract Hermann at the party? Request a Yiddish song in the ghetto? Remove a few names from a deportation list? Every day she
lived a lie to save her own skin. Still, honesty compelled her to answer, “If I thought it would make a difference, then yes.”

“Like Jesus.” He weighed the book in his hand. “According to the Bible, His death saved the world.” He glanced at her. “Do you think mine will make a difference?”