For Such a Time (4 page)

An amused gleam lit his eyes, and she didn’t know what to make of it. Helen reappeared with a platter of steaming food. Taking the colonel’s words to heart, she served Stella a small helping of fried onions, sauerkraut, and a meat-stuffed bell pepper. Stella’s insides cramped with hunger, before she
detected the peculiar odor she’d smelled earlier in the kitchen. Not beef . . .

“Helen prepared this
Gefüllte Paprika
the Austrian way,” he said from his place at the table. “You should find it quite delicious.”

Pork
. Stella stared at her plate, her stomach raging between hunger and a sudden queasiness. She picked up her fork and pushed aside the pepper before nibbling at her onions and sauerkraut.

“You will sample
everything
, Fräulein.”

She glanced up at the colonel’s mutinous expression. “I . . . I cannot.”

“Cannot? Or will not? Helen has gone to much trouble to prepare this meal. And considering what you’ve had to eat in the past, I would expect you to be grateful.”

She lowered her gaze. “I am, it’s . . . it’s just the bell pepper. I get hives,” she lied. “Besides, I’m not very hungry.”

“I don’t care if you’re hungry or not,” he said, ignoring her statement. “You may leave the pepper, but eat the filling.”

She poked at the stuffed pepper and eyed the rest of her meal wistfully. She’d been starved at Dachau; the Nazis used hunger as a weapon, making the weak fall victim to disease and death, while the strong grew feeble enough to be easily managed.

Shame pricked her. Any of those still suffering in that place would gladly eat dog were it roasted on a spit and served up to them.
“And the meek shall inherit
the land . . .”

Only the strong survived in it. Stella took a bite of the pork and resisted an urge to gag. Three more and her stomach roiled. “I’m sorry.” Her fork clattered onto the plate. “No more—”

“That wasn’t so terrible, was it?” he cajoled. “Soon you’ll regain your strength.”

Despair swept through her like an icy wind. He’d made her defile herself before God.

“You’ll need new clothing for your position as my secretary. Helen will find you a suitable wardrobe.”

She barely heard him. It was
she
who had remained faithful; now she’d failed.

“You’re exhausted.” He rose from his place at the table and moved around behind her. “Upstairs with you. Get some sleep. Morning will arrive soon enough.”

Helen had returned with a tray of cheese and dried fruit. “Helen, please help Fräulein Muller to her room,” he ordered.

“I can manage.” Yet as Stella started to rise, her knees gave out. She grabbed at his arm to keep from falling.

“You’re so thin, and much too weak,” he said gruffly. “Helen will help until you’re stronger. Meanwhile, I won’t have you falling down and cracking your skull.”

“Please, I’m fine.” She hated being treated like a child, or worse, like an invalid. She pulled away and walked carefully toward the stairs.

On the wall at the foot of the landing she spied a painting she hadn’t noticed before. Larger than the watercolor in her room, the oil-on-canvas scene was also quite different. Snowcapped peaks—the Bavarian Alps, she guessed—rose behind a castle of gray rock and mortar that lay nestled in a green meadow. Hazy clouds drifted in a blue sky, and beyond the meadow stood a monastery, its bell tower visible in the distance.

Oddly she found the image comforting. Stella imagined the rich, loamy smell of grass as the cry of a solitary bell chimed the hour. Her home in Mannheim’s bustling city had differed greatly from this pastoral scene.

Again she felt a violent longing for what she’d lost: her uncle and their cheery apartment above his shop on the
Roonstrasse
; her clerk’s job at the printing press manufacturer,
Schnellpressen AG
, in neighboring Heidelberg; her best friend, Marta Kurtz. Parties. Music. They were all gone, as if her former life had never existed except in dreams.

Only uncertainty remained. Tangible, oppressive, it weighed her down like a shackle, knowing that someday she would be caught in a lie or cause some slight. Or perhaps there would be no reason at all, simply that this new monster would grow tired of her.

When that happened, not even God could save her. She reached for the banister, pulling her exhausted body up the stairs.

Maybe it would have been better to die.

 4 

“If I have found favor with you, O king, and if it pleases your majesty, grant me my life.”

Esther 7:3

S
tella
shivered
in
line
on
the
Appellplatz
during
roll
call
as
the
horse
-
drawn
Moorexpress
paused
to
collect
another
body
.
Corpses
,
piled
at
contorted
angles
,
glistened
in
the
gray
light
,
clothed
in
the
crystalline
gauze
of
half
rain
,
half
snow
.

At the top sprawled a dead child.

Stella shoved a
fist in her mouth. The ground shifted beneath her.
Please, God, no!

Then a tiny breath rose like mist from
the heap; she caught the imperceptible flutter of baby-soft
lashes. Stella tried to scream, though no sound emerged. She
broke from the line, but strong hands pulled her back
. She turned to meet Greatcoat’s gaze. His green eyes
were cold, his grip painful.

The Moorexpress had reached the
Krematorium. A loud wail echoed from inside the ovens. A
child’s cry of terror . . .

Anna!
Stella fought to
free herself from Greatcoat’s arms. Biting, kicking, she exhausted
every ounce of strength to try and save her little
girl—

“Wake up!” Stella’s eyes flew open to the sound of her own screams. She spied the black SS uniform and fought harder.

“Look at me!”

The colonel shook her. Stella froze. Perspiration pooled at her back as she obeyed him.

Concern, not cruelty, etched his features. Her panic slowly abated, washing away the last traces of sleep. Her own cries had filled the nightmare; her desperate flailing had been against the bed, not the monster in her dreams.

Anna was still dead.

She emitted a choked gasp and turned her head away.

“Easy.” The colonel drew her into his arms, rubbing her back as if she were a child. “Bad dream? I’m not surprised, considering what you’ve been through.”

Grief, humiliation, and more disquieting emotions seized her. Stella became acutely aware of her nakedness under the robe, having fallen asleep on top of the coverlet after her bath.

She pushed away from him and scooted toward the head of the bed. An awkward silence passed.

“I’ll get you another blanket,” he said at last.

She watched him rise from the bed and go to the armoire. Imposing in his sinister black uniform, he seemed to limp more than he had earlier.

What did he really want from her? Secretarial skills . . . or something else?

He returned to the bed with a standard military-issue wool blanket. Loosening the black tie at his neck, he said, “Take off that robe and lie down.”

She gaped at him, unable to move as old nightmares paralyzed her. Did she have the strength to fight him off? Pressed up against the headboard, she tugged on the hem of her robe. “I won’t,” she whispered.

He tossed the blanket at her, clearly exasperated. “I only thought you’d be more comfortable.”

She quickly covered herself in the wool and averted her eyes.

“I was on my way to bed when I heard your screams,” he continued. “If you like, I’ll stay until you fall back to sleep.”

She shook her head, still uneasy.

“I bid you good night, then.”

Yet he didn’t move, as though he wanted to say more. Finally he turned and strode to the door, switching off the light. A wash of moonlight flooded in through the lace curtains, casting a pattern of shadows across the floor.

“The child . . . was she yours?”

His question pierced the darkness between them like an unseen blade. Stella huddled beneath the blanket, hardly breathing. Only when typhus had finally taken Anna’s mother did the little girl leave her cooling flesh to crawl into Stella’s warm bunk, and into her heart. “She meant more to me than my life.”

The colonel’s silhouette shone in the dim light from the hall. “I wish . . .” he began, but his voice trailed off. “Good night.”

“Herr Kommandant?” Stella used the shadows to cloak her anxiety while she voiced her most burning question. “When will I be able to leave?”

The figure in the doorway grew still. “Are you so eager to go?”

“I . . . I want to return home.”

“But you have no family, and I doubt the Jews who raised you are still living there.”

The truth of his remark stung; she’d returned home on the train after work one day to discover their apartment boarded up, the streets empty, and not a trace of her uncle or her friends.

“Besides, Innsbruck is many miles from here, Stella,” he added. “How far do you think you could travel in your condition?”

She didn’t intend to travel to Innsbruck, but he was right about that, too. She’d barely made it up the stairs to her room after dinner. “But when I’m strong enough, Herr Kommandant . . . ?”

“Once you’re completely rested and have eaten plenty of Helen’s good cooking, we can discuss it.” Light from the hall
danced as he shifted against the jamb. “But it wounds me that you choose to abandon me, especially when we are marooned out here in miles of hip-deep snow and I’m in desperate need of a competent assistant. Is this the thanks I get for saving your life?”

“Of course not, Herr Kommandant. Thank you.” She swallowed her misery, grasping his real meaning. For now, anyway, she would remain his prisoner.

“You’re most welcome.” His darkened profile relaxed. “I wish you pleasant dreams.”

After he left, she settled back in bed and tried to sleep, but memories of Anna kept her awake—and her anxiety over the colonel’s motives.

He’d told her of his plan to obtain a secretary from Munich, a place with doubtless hundreds more qualified for the post. And yet he’d made up his mind to hire Stella, even before knowing her explanation for the red
JUDE
stamped on her papers.

Why had he chosen her? She had no wealth, no affluence. And who could possibly desire a bald, bruised scarecrow of a woman? He would have raped her tonight in this room, otherwise.

Stella watched as shadows danced across the ceiling. Aric von Schmidt frightened her. She also found herself drawn to him—a more terrifying prospect than the fat Nazi who accosted her in Mannheim or the guards at Dachau who bruised her with their clubs.

This man, for whatever reason, toyed with that place inside her long buried beneath degradation, despair, and mistrust . . . a place as deep as her soul.

The part of her that yearned for human love.

Stella blinked against the early morning’s achromatic brightness and rolled onto her back.

“
Guten Morgen
,” a voice whispered from the doorway.

She jerked her head around, then groaned in relief. “Good morning yourself, mischief.”

Joseph’s brown eyes lit with amusement. He obviously felt safe with her. That was something.

“Where’s Helen?”

“She’s making breakfast,” Joseph answered. “Herr Kommandant says you can eat in your room this morning. And you don’t have to work today.” He paused. “Did you have a nightmare?”

Stella sat up in bed. “What time is it?” she asked, ignoring his question.

“Six fifteen.”

“I’m getting dressed and going downstairs.” She didn’t doubt the boy’s words, but she wasn’t falling for another Nazi trap, either. The thought of returning to Dachau made her shiver.

Joseph looked glum. “I’m supposed to . . . help you, if you need me to.”

Stella hid a smile at his obvious discomfort. “You can help me find my underthings.”

His mouth dropped, and a furious blush stained his cheeks.

“I suppose I can manage on my own,” she relented, taking pity on him. His relief was comical. “Give me thirty minutes to get ready, all right?”

He nodded before turning to swagger from the room. Stella tried not to think of Anna.
Later
, she promised herself,
when it won’t hurt so much.

She eased out of bed, stretching sore limbs as she stumbled toward the window. The fortress stood against the pewter sky like a secret island rising above a sea of white. Stella could only glimpse the tallest spires inside the stronghold. The place seemed impenetrable.

She shivered once more at the sight of barbed wire and searchlights staking off ground to the right of the entrance. Theresienstadt was no haven. Its walls didn’t protect; they trapped their victims, just like the gates at Dachau.

Did the people inside suffer as much . . . or worse?

Stella spun away. She didn’t want to think about it. She couldn’t help them, anyway.

Inside the bathroom, she avoided her reflection in the mirror. The red wig had found its way in from the car to a wire stand beside the sink. Doubtless the colonel’s unspoken command was that she wear it.

Stella turned on the shower, again feeling a need to wash despite her bath the previous night. The clove-scented soap she’d been given reminded her of
Havdalah
, when the closing of each Sabbath was blessed with spices like cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon—an offering for sweetness and peace in the coming week.

She tried to focus on that memory as she welcomed the hot, clean water against her skin. Stella ignored the pang of guilt she felt at such luxury. Suffering had become a way of life. Would she be a fool and deny Pleasure’s offering?

Back in her room, she found the armoire filled with colorful sweaters, pants, scarves, and socks. One drawer held a profusion of lace; as she rummaged through panties, bras, garter belts, and real silk stockings, she marveled at Helen’s generosity.

Once she’d located a white cotton slip that wouldn’t slide off her hips, Stella perused the dozen tailored suits crammed inside the cabinet. Mildly curious over the varying sizes, she chose the smallest of the lot: a houndstooth jacket and matching skirt.

Donning the outfit, she had to double the jacket’s belt around her waist. Afterward she bit back a cry as she stuffed her tender feet into a tight pair of high-heeled pumps; she hadn’t worn real shoes in months. Sucking in a painful breath, she tottered back to the bathroom and put on the hairpiece.

Stella forced herself to look in the mirror. Hadassah Benjamin, a
Mischling
, half Jew, bursting with a young woman’s exuberance, had ceased to exist. In her place stood Stella Muller, subdued Austrian bookkeeper and suitable stock for the Third Reich. A frail disguise comprised of no more than a scrap of
official-looking paper, a red wig, and beneath her bruises the inherent fair features of a Dutch grandmother.