For Such a Time (35 page)

 41 

But Haman rushed home, with his head covered in grief. . . .

Esther 6:12

T
he ghetto was on fire.

Cresting the last hill, Hermann spied the black smoke snaking upward like serpents into the approaching dusk. The blaze seemed to be spreading through the center of town.

“What . . . ?” He punched the accelerator; the car slipped sideways across an icy curve and narrowly missed a ditch. Easing back on the gas, he managed to straighten the vehicle . . . then noticed that the train, to his left, was loading prisoners.

His heart pounded as he again increased his speed, more evenly this time. Who had given the order? He’d left Sonntag explicit instructions to wait until his return . . .

Another possibility occurred to him: Had the prisoner escaped? The one held a few kilometers away in the two-story brick house? The notion wasn’t hard to grasp. Schmidt had won both the Iron Cross First Class and the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords, given only to those frontline commanders who displayed exceptional bravery and skill. He was also the same man who killed Koch and Brucker as easily as two grouse in a bush.

“Wehrmacht!” Hermann roared, racing the car toward the house. He arrived minutes later to find the commandant’s Mercedes gone. Alarmed, he rushed inside and burst into the library. Empty. After conducting a methodic search of the house, he located three of his men bound and gagged in a room off the kitchen.

“The old Hausfrau poisoned us!” Zeissen bellowed once his gag was removed. “Herr Captain, there was nothing we could do—”

“Shut up!” Hermann finished removing Zeissen’s bindings. “Help Martin,” he ordered before he bent to loosen the knots at his corporal’s wrists. “Where is the Kommandant?” he asked Sonntag. “Did he take the car?”

“I don’t know, Herr Captain. He came to the Judenrat’s office hours ago and attacked me. He hit me over the head with something.” Freed at last, Sonntag rubbed the raised lump on his scalp. “I woke up in this room.”

“Then he and his Jew mistress have escaped.” Hermann ignored Sonntag’s surprised look. “Zeissen, Martin, go to the ghetto and put out that fire. Sonntag, come with me. I need to find out who’s loading that train. No one goes anywhere until I say so!”

“Move, you lazy Jude!”

Hadassah cried out as the butt of the rifle landed hard between her shoulder blades. She lurched forward with her precious bundle, knocking the people in front of her off-balance.

“Mama . . .” the child in her arms whimpered.

“Hush now, it’s all right.” Hadassah regained her footing and pressed on. Shifting the little girl in her arms, she worked to adjust the Bible, flares, and flare pistol hidden inside her bomber jacket so that they didn’t poke her in the stomach.

Perhaps she shouldn’t have gone back; she could have stayed
with Joseph in the first car. But Hadassah couldn’t ignore the child’s tearful cry any more than she could that night in the ghetto. The little girl must have lost her mother in the throng making its way onto the ramps.

“I said now!”

Again the Soldat shoved his rifle into her. Hadassah stumbled forward before she realized he was herding her up a ramp at the middle of the train. “Please, I must get to the first car!”

She made a desperate attempt to swerve away.

“Eager to get there?” the soldier barked.

Her mind exploded with pain as the butt of the rifle struck the back of her head. Dimly she heard a child scream before her legs collapsed beneath her, forcing her to the ground. Then a man growled, “First or last, you’ll all get there at the same time,” before darkness seized her.

Hadassah heard nothing else.

 42 

On the thirteenth day . . . the month of Adar, the edict commanded by the king was to be carried out.

Esther 9:1

H
ave you boarded all the prisoners?” Aric demanded.

“We are almost finished, Herr Kommandant.”

“Hurry, Private, I want this train moving in five minutes.”

“Jawohl!”

He returned the soldier’s salute, then watched the young man break into a run along the tracks. All thirty cars were now filled with people wearing numbered tags, crowded together like matchsticks. He glanced at his watch. Where was Hadassah?

Alarm compounded the uneasiness he already felt; he had to stifle yet another urge to go in search of her. He couldn’t afford to let his emotions jeopardize the plan—too much was at stake. Hermann would return at any time.

Still, Aric edged closer to the first ramp and stared into the shadowed confines of the car. When he didn’t see her face among the dozens huddled together near the open door, his agitation increased. His breath rushed out in a puff of warm steam, and not for the first time he wondered at the lunacy of his plan. These people would freeze to death before they ever saw freedom.

A small face peered around the opening. Joseph shouldered
a heavy woolen blanket and flashed Aric his pitifully swollen smile before a hand dragged him back inside.

Aric breathed a sigh of relief. Hadassah had made it on board with the boy. He continued along the tracks past each car, a renewed sense of expectancy rising in him as he watched the remaining fifty or so board. When he retraced his steps, Yaakov and Morty were being hauled up on stretchers into the first car.

Yaakov groaned like a man breathing his last. Aric’s mouth twitched at the performance, until one of the two men that carried Morty and the prized Panzerfaust lost his grip.

The stretcher—and Morty—dropped to the ground. Aric’s pulse rocketed as he hurried toward the scene. A guard beat him to it.

“You clumsy oaf! PICK . . . HIM . . . UP!” the sentry screamed.

Morty’s blankets had unraveled. Aric’s mouth went dry as he spied the bulging outline of the tank gun against the canvas stretcher.

The guard had also noticed. “What is that?” He leaned closer. “What have you got there, Jude?”

“Achtung, Private!” Aric forced his way up the ramp and faced the guard, effectively blocking his view. “Why are you causing delays?”

The young Soldat jumped to attention. “The Jude hides something beneath his blankets, Herr Kommandant!”

“Does he? And what could that possibly be?”

The guard shifted. “I don’t know, Herr Kommandant, I was about to investigate.”

Aric turned to Morty. “Are you hiding something?”

He expected Hadassah’s uncle to deny the charge, but when Morty reached beneath the blanket, Aric’s breath froze. Had the old man gone mad?

“My violin, Herr Kommandant.” Morty held up a Stradivarius for all to see.

Aric leaned against his cane to steady his legs. “You have
sharp eyes, Private,” he told the guard. “I’ll note that for your next rank evaluation. Now go and see to the other cars.”

The guard raised a salute, then hesitated. “Shall I confiscate the instrument, Herr Kommandant?”

“Let him keep it. I believe the Kommandant at Auschwitz has a fondness for music.”

The sentry rushed off to obey his commandant’s orders. Aric and Morty exchanged a grim look. “Carry on,” Aric said. Only after the two men on stretchers were safely loaded and the guards closed the doors was he able to calm his heart rate. He cast another glance at his watch and then started for the single-room train station, where one soldier manned a wireless radio.

A woman’s shrill scream brought him up short. Aric spun around and saw a tall dark-haired woman struggling to move past his soldiers into a full car. The same guard gave her a hard shove backward, knocking her off the ramp and onto the ground below.

“Halt, Private!” Aric strode toward the pair. Minutes were slipping by. “What is the problem this time?”

“She has no assigned number, Herr Kommandant.” Again the Soldat straightened to attention. “There is no more room.”

It was true. The car was so full that those inside could hardly breathe. The other cars were in the same condition.

“Please, Herr Kommandant! I dropped my tag and someone must have taken it!”

Aric glanced at the woman. Young and slim, she had a pretty face beneath the bruises. His chest tightened as he thought of his beloved.

He rechecked the time on his watch. “I’m sorry, Fräulein. You must go back.”

“Wait, please!” A woman pushed her way forward through the packed bodies inside the car. It was Mrs. Brenner. “I beg you, Herr Kommandant.” Her voice held panic. “She’s my daughter, Clara. She must come with me.”

The older woman’s dark eyes were brimming with tears. Aric’s
gut ached. “Are you certain all the cars are full?” he barked at the soldier. Having watched nearly three thousand people cram themselves inside the train, he already knew the answer.

“Jawohl, Herr Kommandant. We had difficulty closing the doors.”

Aric fought another urge to look at his watch. “I can’t help you,” he said to Clara. He turned to Mrs. Brenner. “The train must leave now.”

She met his gaze, and Aric expected to see hatred. But Mrs. Brenner merely offered him a sad smile, then removed the numbered tag from around her neck. “She will have my place.”

Aric worked his jaw. “See to it, Private,” he said.

Mrs. Brenner was swiftly extricated from the car and led down the ramp. Clara let out a cry as she and her mother embraced, clinging fiercely to each other. Then Mrs. Brenner pulled back and said, “God go with you, child,” and slipped the tag over her daughter’s head.

The older woman watched as her daughter made her way inside the car. The soldiers then closed the door and moved to the next ramp.

Aric turned to Mrs. Brenner. “I regret . . .” His voice trailed off. He knew no words to comfort her.

“Succeed, Herr Kommandant,” she said fiercely. “For all of our sakes.”

The nightmare began.

“Schnell!” Hermann slammed a fist against the dashboard. The train was gathering steam as black smoke billowed in bursts against a dusky sky.

Sonntag pressed down on the accelerator. The car lunged forward on the snow and zigzagged for several meters before sliding sideways to a stop.

Hermann kicked the door open and leaped from the car.

“Herr Captain!”

He ignored his corporal’s cry and raced for the station. Less than ten meters away, he slipped on the ice and staggered backward, regaining his balance only after he’d pulled a muscle in his right leg.

Eight meters.

He continued his breakneck pace.

Five meters.

The shaft of the locomotive wheels began to turn.

Four meters.

A screaming whistle—the train lumbered forward.

Two meters.

He burst into the lighted train station office. The radio he’d intended to use lay in a mangled heap on the floor. Beside it rested another heap: his station man, half naked and unconscious. Hermann ripped off his hat and wiped at the sweat along his forehead. His pulse threatened to explode. He had to stop the train.

As he turned to dash back out, he spied the black uniform on the floor behind the door—an officer’s tunic with the unmistakable Knight’s Cross in a beribboned pile beside it. The gleam of brass from a dark wooden cane . . .

“Wehrmacht!” He bellowed his frustration as he barreled outside to the tracks.

The train was picking up speed. Fury and panic sent a flood of adrenaline surging through him. He saw the house, the warm fire, the good food—all disappear with each belch of black smoke.

Three soldiers stood off the boot and gaped at him in wonder. With a desperate burst of speed he sprinted after them, his lungs burning by the time he neared the rail of the caboose.

Several pairs of hands reached out to him. He leaped forward like a human javelin, gasping at the excruciating pain in his left shoulder as the soldiers dragged him inside.

Aric stood inside the cramped engine room of the locomotive. His eyes darted between the guard leaning against the opposite door and the two engineers who stoked the fire and set the boiler to increase the train’s speed.

Finally the soldier—a lance corporal—withdrew a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket. “Want one?” He held out the pack to Aric.

“Danke.” Aric withdrew a cigarette and returned the pack. The lance corporal also took one, then drew out a tin of matches. He lit his cigarette, taking it deeply into his lungs. “I do this ‘cleanup’ run all the time, but I’ve never seen you before. Are you new?”

“New to this job,” Aric responded.

The soldier handed over the lit cigarette. Aric kindled his and handed it back. “Enjoy it.”

The soldier paused to stare at him. “Why?”

“It’s your last one.”

Before the lance corporal could blink, Aric had his Browning poised on him. “You’re going to jump.”

“You’re crazy!”

“You have no idea.” Aric flashed a humorless smile. He stepped forward and commanded, “Now jump or I’ll kick your corpse over the side with my boot.”

The engineers froze next to the firebox. The lance corporal grinned at Aric. “This is a joke, right?”

Aric flipped off the safety. “I’m not laughing.”

Seconds stretched. The whine of the boiler and the roar of burning tender echoed in the small heated space. Sweat beaded along Aric’s brow beneath his steel helmet. “One.”

“Lunatic!” The soldier dropped his cigarette as he reached for the rifle strapped at his shoulder. Aric ripped off a shot. The bullet whizzed past the lance corporal’s ear to shatter a thick pane of glass in the door behind him. “Two.”

“All right, all right!” The soldier moved to slide the door
open. A rush of frigid air swept through the compartment. Aric followed him out onto the plate, Browning in hand.

The soldier stared at the blur of track rushing beneath the train. He turned to Aric. “Please . . .”

“Three.”

Giving out a strained yelp, the soldier jumped over the edge. Aric watched him land just beyond the track, tumbling against the white ground like a snowball gaining speed. He closed the door and announced to the two engineers, “I’m in charge now.”