For Such a Time (28 page)

 32 

“Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. . . .”

Esther 4:13

A
ric paced the library floor wearing his full military regalia: black tie and a fitted brown shirt, pressed and starched beneath his uniform jacket; creased black slacks and leather jackboots hand-rubbed to a polished sheen. Even the aluminum buckle on his belt and cross strap gleamed in the amber light from the task lamp positioned over Stella’s neatly arranged desk.

She would be difficult, he knew. Yet as a seasoned soldier, and Stella his unwilling adversary, Aric made it a point to know her weaknesses. His pulse quickened at the thought of this evening, when she would become his wife in truth. He’d desired Stella for so long that he felt a moment’s gratitude toward God . . . and that gluttonous fool, Feldman, for setting the course of his future into motion.

His future
. Aric paused in his pacing. The truth was that he
needed
to marry her, not because of all his logical reasons but because he couldn’t bear the thought of losing her. She had captured his heart with her smile, her innate goodness and belief in others, even the way she stood up to his anger. And despite
their differences, he knew that she cared about him—the man, not the soldier, the machine.

Marriage would keep them tangibly linked. And once this terrible mess was finished, he could begin his life again, this time with Stella. Perhaps tonight they would even make a child together, a little girl to make her forget about the dead one. To forget about Joseph . . .

“Herr Kommandant, I must speak with you.”

Aric turned to find his captain at the library doors. Hermann held a sheaf of papers. “There is a problem.”

Aric noted an excited gleam in his eyes. “Come inside,” he said, leading the way into his office. He’d just closed the door when Hermann slapped the papers down against the desk. “Take a look.”

“Are these a few last-minute corrections that Herr General deigned to leave to SS efficiency, Captain?” Aric asked, fishing for his glasses.

He immediately saw it was not. Hairs rose on the back of his neck as he recognized the top sheet of the train manifest Stella had typed the night before. “What seems to be amiss?”

“She’s a traitor.”

Aric’s blood went cold. He leaned against the desk. “What are you talking about?”

Hermann jabbed a finger at the sheet. “
She
has altered the lists. Here, and here.”

He indicated several missing numbers. Aric’s muscles eased. “You show me a couple of mistakes, Captain?” It surprised him that for years he’d cleaved to exactitude, ingrained in him by his father, and then throughout his years of disciplined soldiering. Now he felt only mild irritation. “Easily corrected,” he said dismissively.

“You’ll find Fräulein Muller’s action very premeditated, Herr Kommandant.” Hermann picked up the rest of the papers from the desk and waved them at Aric. “Eight numbers omitted from
each page, and not just today’s train. I’ve dispatched a detail to locate the one hundred sixty Jews who escaped notice last Friday. On this manifest”—he pointed to the sheet in Aric’s hand—“nearly two hundred are missing.” He paused. “Clearly sabotage.”

Aric stared at the sheaf of papers, tasting the first bitter traces of treachery.
Georg . . .
Memories seeped into his brain, stabbing his insides as he scanned the pages of meaningless names and numbers, wanting to shout a denial at Hermann’s words.

Yet his hopes for the future had already begun to recede, like the fading images of a dream . . . even as he clung to them. “How can you be certain—?”

“Herr Kommandant, please! You let your feelings for the woman affect your thinking. Surely you can see now that she’s one of them?”

“You’re out of line, soldier!” Aric’s rage surfaced, and he pressed his face nose to nose with Hermann’s. “You dare speak to me in such a manner or question
my
judgment? I am Kommandant of this camp!”

“It doesn’t change the fact that your intended bride has committed treason against the Reich,
Herr
Kommandant
,” Hermann ground out with equal venom. “Any obstruction you present in this matter will be taken as complicity.”

The captain was correct: Aric would face a court-martial if he so much as tried to interfere. Stepping back against the desk, he struggled to leash the fury that overrode his stupefaction.

“Where is she?” Hermann demanded.

“Upstairs. I’ll get her!” Aric snapped when the captain made to step toward the door. He snatched the sheaf of papers from Hermann, then pushed past him out of the office, nearly knocking the captain off his feet.

Outside the library, he bounded up the stairs two at a time, ignoring the pain in his legs.
They had both betrayed him
. Aching visions of the past swamped him—the days just prior to
the first failed attempt of
Anschluss
, in ’33. Aric had been a teenager then, coming home for a holiday from university. He and his best friend, Georg Zimmer, along with several other boys from Bonn’s Hitler Jugend, had marched proudly through Innsbruck’s city streets, spouting off Hitler’s ideals to passersby. Aric had been naïve in the belief he could convince his Austrian countrymen to adopt Germany’s vision for a new future.

The first blow had struck him hard from behind. Uniformed Austrian
Landswehr
soldiers had seized him and his friends, meting out with bludgeons their intent to keep Austria free of Nazis. That night, as Aric lay in an Innsbruck jail barely conscious, he’d wanted to die with shame at the treachery of his own fellow Austrians. But it was Georg who had lost his life.

Pain from the past collided with Aric’s present rage and threatened to explode as he reached Stella’s bedroom door. When his father had come to arrange for his release the following morning, Aric learned the truth that Johann von Schmidt, always vehemently opposed to Hitler’s ideologies, had turned in his only son to the police.

Even now, the memory of his father’s betrayal pierced his heart. And Stella—

Aric let out a tormented cry as he rammed a fist through the paneled wood door.

Hers would forever brand his soul.

 33 

“For how can I bear to see disaster fall on my people? How can I bear to see the destruction of my family?”

Esther 8:6

S
top
taking
risks
.
Morty’s writing was bold, emphatic.
There
are
160
possibilities
you
will
pay
for
your
actions
.

Standing clothed and barefoot in the bathtub, Stella stood just outside the range of hot spray and scanned the smudged contents of her uncle’s note. He’d written to her on the back of a mimeographed advertisement for
Requiem
, to be performed for the Red Cross.

So he knew of her handiwork regarding last Friday’s train. He couldn’t yet know of this morning’s list and almost two hundred souls, Joseph among them, who wouldn’t be boarding the train at Bohusovice’s station.

. . . cannot get caught, daughter,
her uncle continued.
You will
be our salvation. . . .

Stella had grown to hate the word
salvation
. Morty had written to her before knowing her current situation, that in little more than an hour she would be the bride of a man who wanted her but did not love her, a man determined to win her away from another man’s desire.

And afterward, when she’d given him what he wanted most, when she’d splayed her heart open for the price of a single night of passion, he would send her away to a safe place, where words like
deprivation
and
death
no longer seemed real but were merely unpleasantries discoursed among strangers.

And Jews would still die. She’d be useless to those left behind.

Steam rose from the hot shower, swallowing her in a damp haze. Stella breathed deep to ease the tightness in her chest and throat. She thought of Helen’s faith, and Morty, with his prophetic vision. Why was she the only one who saw the truth?

There were no miracles.

She’d almost begun to believe when Aric championed the Jews’ right to decent food, or each time he tousled Joseph’s hair and smiled at him, treating him not as a pariah but like any other child.

She thought God had listened when she’d prayed for Aric’s safety, and when, despite her convictions and against all reasoning, she’d fallen in love with him.

But the cold reality was that their bond was built on deceit. She was Jewish, and Aric was a man who would always bow to duty first, even if it meant death to her people. She must keep pretending—to be someone she wasn’t; to do the right thing by leaving tomorrow and never look back. To be loved . . .

“Why won’t you speak to me?” she cried, fisting the note and plunging herself beneath the spray. Liquid heat drenched her white blouse and wool skirt, and she tore at her clothes while the water’s pressure pushed away her wig. The wet strands pooled at her feet. Like red tentacles caught in an eddy, they swirled round and round, unable to stop. Trapped . . .

Loud gasps shook her shoulders. Finally her knees gave out and she sank into the standing water, wearing only her slip, uncaring that her clothes were ruined—

Strong hands grabbed her from behind. Stella screamed as she was jerked from the tub. The wet ball of paper—Morty’s note—flew from her hand to roll across the tiled floor.

While her assailant hauled her into the bedroom, she was seized with a vague sense of familiarity, one she’d memorized in her heart.

He finally spun her around. “Liar!”

Aric’s handsome features contorted with rage. Stella fought down her panic. He shoved her backward until she fell hard against the mattress. “Tell me why?” he demanded in a near roar.

She couldn’t find her tongue to speak.

“Sabotage!” He swept up a handful of papers off the bed and threw them at her.

Transport lists. Fear stabbed at her like icicles.

“I trusted you. I even saved your life—and you betrayed me!”

He raised his fist as if to strike her. Stella flinched, waiting for the blow. Then he turned instead and grabbed the music box from the nightstand. “I even gave you this . . .”

Hurling the delicate box against the wall, it shattered into pieces. Pearls scattered everywhere, along with Morty’s note and his Grand Cross.

Aric didn’t seem to notice. “Did you have a good laugh at my expense, Stella . . . or should I call you
Sarah
, like the others in the ghetto? You’re a Jew, aren’t you?”

She gaped at him even as giddy relief shot through her numbed state. He knew the truth.

“Herr Kommandant!”

Hermann burst into the room and stared at the bed. “I heard you shouting, I thought . . .” He gazed at her openly. Stella tried to hide beneath the papers.

“Get out, Captain,” Aric said through clenched teeth. “I haven’t finished my interrogation of the prisoner.”

Hermann stared at her another moment before his attention turned to the destroyed music box and its contents lying on the floor. He leaned to pick up Morty’s Cross, and she groaned. He then retrieved her uncle’s note, the one that proved Koch’s
and Brucker’s failed attempt at murder. He stuffed them both inside his jacket pocket.

“Get out!” Aric looked ready to kill. Hermann shot her a last glance before he backed out of the room.

“What other lies have you told me? Do you have a husband? Is that why you don’t want to marry me?” Aric glared at her.

“No, please, I . . . I told you the truth!”

Terror filled her as he leaned over her, pinning her wrists against the bed. “I doubt you’re even a virgin.” Stark fury etched his rock-hard features.

“Aric,” she said hoarsely, “you don’t understand—”

“Oh, but I do. You bargained for this all along, didn’t you? Using your beauty, your charm, to get what you wanted from me. For those Jews.”

His face moved so close that their lips nearly joined, but anger—not desire—burned in his eyes. “You were even willing to bed the general for one of them, weren’t you?”

“Would that have been worse than your dying?” She searched his harsh features for some sign of the man she’d fallen in love with. “You told me you couldn’t help the Jews, that your own soldiers would kill you if you tried.”

He paused, his breathing labored, his eyes clouded with anguish. Stella desperately wanted to soothe his anger and the despair that must match her own. She lifted her head a fraction of an inch and pressed her mouth to his, eyes open, imploring. His body went completely still. He stared back at her, then gradually she noted the faint dilation of his pupils; she felt the moment his lips softened, molding to hers. Her eyelids drifted closed as she gave herself up completely to the kiss, telling him with every fiber of her being how much she loved him—

“No,” he growled, dragging his mouth from hers. With a single, fluid movement he pushed himself off the bed and away from her. “No.”

———

Aric’s fury gave way to exhaustion; he felt as though someone had bludgeoned him. He stared at her—she who had been his hope, his future. “Get dressed, Sarah.”

“Not Sarah.” She rose off the bed, her large eyes blazing blue fire at him. “
Hadassah
. Is that Jewish enough for you?”

Admiration warred with his anger as he stared at her beautiful form. “How could you do this?” he whispered. “To us?”

“How could I not? If they were your people, you would do the same.” She stood before him, shoulders straight with the same natural grace that had first mesmerized him at Dachau. “We breathe the same air. We eat, sleep, and have the same hopes and dreams. We love . . .” Her gaze faltered, then returned to sear him. “In the most important ways we are the same, Aric. We want to live, just like you.”

“But I warned you!” he bellowed, more enraged over her senseless sacrifice. He grasped her shoulders. “Nothing can help them, don’t you see? It’s too big now; it’s gone too far.”

“I had to try.”

She sounded so calm. “Curse your soft heart!” He shoved her away from him. “Because of what you’ve done, I must arrest you.”

“I’m not afraid.”

“You should be.” He glowered at her, then saw she really was terrified—the way her mouth trembled beneath those enormous blue eyes. Wolkenbrand would commence against the Jews as soon as the Red Cross departed. She would be among them.

Something inside of him collapsed. Shut down. “You were right about me,” he said in a voice he hardly recognized as his own. “I am a monster.”

He reached to trace the delicate curve of her cheek. Touching her was painful, but he endured it. He’d already endured so much.

Duty had always come first; he’d been a soldier too many years, a front-line commander. He’d seen too many of his own
die on the bloody battlefields of Russia; he’d spent too many months trudging through snow and mud, suffering lice and freezing temperatures. And he could do nothing else until the war was over. Not until Germany either won or surrendered. He was conditioned for nothing else, knew nothing else. He had nothing else.

Aric let his hand drop back to his side. “Dress warmly.” The words felt numb against his tongue. “Captain Hermann will escort you to the ghetto.”

She walked to the armoire, and after retrieving the same houndstooth jacket and skirt she’d worn that first morning, she slipped into the bathroom to change. When she reappeared, she seemed more achingly beautiful than he could ever remember. He walked to the door.

“You’re not a monster, Aric.” Her voice came to him soft and steady. “Or a martyr, either. You’re just a man, nothing more.”

He stood with his hand on the knob, refusing to look back at her. He couldn’t. Giving a rough jerk, he tore open the door and stormed from the room.

Back into the world that had suddenly crashed in on him.