For Such a Time (9 page)

Did they think her as frivolous and callous as the zoinehs who had just left?

The fire’s heat branded her in guilt, and the words of the prophet Amos rose unbidden in her mind:
“Hear this
word, you cows of Bashan on Mount Samaria, you women
who oppress the poor and crush the needy and say
to your husbands, ‘Bring us some drinks!’”

They had begun queuing up at the door. Stella flinched, reminded of her own hours spent in line, awaiting roll call at Dachau with the other prisoners. Like lambs for the slaughter . . .

How could they know that she was one of them, merely trapped in gilded surroundings?

Stella eyed her lovely blue gown. She, the best dressed of the flock.

Asa Lokeran bent to the task of returning his precious Amati to its case—the same empty case used to humiliate Sergeant Koch. Morty clutched the other, now filled with precious food. Behind them, safe from view, Mrs. Brenner wrapped Leo’s Stradivarius in the folds of her shawl.

Morty savored the room’s warmth and cast a wistful glance at the crackling fire in the hearth. He noted the redhead still seated in one of the commandant’s fine leather chairs. Why hadn’t she left with the others? She looked so sad with her head bowed and hands folded in her lap. Somehow defeated, not like the other boisterous women. He hadn’t gotten a good look at her face, but he doubted she wore the same heavy paint; there was also a grace of movement about her, far from suggestive. A beauty oddly familiar . . .

“Line up!” Sergeant Koch ordered.

Morty started to turn away when the commandant reentered the living room. The tall man strode toward the redhead, yet she didn’t look up. He’d been furious when she kissed that coward Hermann. Morty hadn’t clearly heard their exchange, what with his crawling on all fours like a donkey to save their necks.

He felt a moment’s pity for her and sighed. It seemed even a zoineh could be fickle. He’d been so certain the captain repulsed her as they danced, yet in the next breath she’d thrown herself at him, creating an uproar. In fact, the timing couldn’t have been more perfect.

“Move out!” barked the sergeant.

The door opened, and Morty shot a last look over his shoulder at the woman before bracing himself against the frigid outdoors. Yaakov had always accused him of thinking too much. Maybe
his friend was right. Wasn’t it enough that God oversaw the night’s efforts? Leo would finally have decent food to eat.

He trudged with the others out into the snow-filled night, unable to forget the miraculous sequence of events that had rescued them that evening—or the red-haired zoineh who, unconsciously or not, set them into motion.

Stella sensed the colonel’s approach, and a shiver of the old fear raced along her spine. She flinched when the front door slammed behind Sergeant Koch as he herded the musicians outside. The slow tick of the foyer clock mingled with the crackle of logs in the hearth, the only remaining sounds to disturb the tense silence.

“Stand up.”

He sounded calm. Perhaps his anger had abated? Stella’s relief wavered as she rose from her chair.

“So you prize brains over beauty, do you?” His gaze traveled her length with insulting deliberateness. “A comfortable assertion for an attractive woman, isn’t it? I assumed that when we toasted your ability earlier, we spoke in professional terms.” His smile lacked warmth. “Apparently I had the wrong profession in mind, which leaves me to wonder what you were trying to prove here tonight.”

“I . . . nothing, Herr Kommandant.” Stella’s voice vibrated with the erratic beat of her heart.

“Then you feel genuine attraction for the captain?” He advanced on her, his voice dangerously soft.

“He disgusts me!” Stella retreated from him until the backs of her knees brushed the chair. “I didn’t want to kiss him.”

“He forced you?”

The clock on the wall magnified the seconds. More lies, this time for Joseph. “Yes.”

“I don’t believe you.”

His hand shot out to grasp her chin. Pulling her to him, he said angrily, “Tell me, Fräulein, if you give your kisses so freely to a captain, what will you offer a colonel? A Kommandant?”

Like a blow, his words roused such pain in Stella that she forgot her fear. “Is this what you want?” She grabbed at the buttoned front of her dress and ripped away the delicate cloth. Blue beads popped and flew in every direction. “The same thing the Gestapo pig tried to take before he shipped me out on a cattle car, or at Dachau when they beat me, then gave orders to have me shot because I refused to surrender to the Block leader’s depravity?”

The front of her dress gaped open, exposing the white lace camisole beneath and the agitated rise and fall of her breathing. “Go on, take it, Herr Kommandant.” Bitterness choked her. “Because I’ve learned it’s much
safer
to submit than to fight back.”

He stared at her, his taut features easing into an expression she couldn’t identify. “I had wondered why you were taken to the shooting pit.”

And you saved me from that death.
She averted her eyes from his, wanting to nurse her resentment. Then she felt his touch, and a thrill coursed through her before being trampled beneath devastation. He was no better than the others.

She looked up at him, stunned, when he merely drew the rent cloth of her gown together. “Perhaps,” he said, “your spirit isn’t so wounded after all.”

She felt wounded enough. “The scars have only made my spirit more resilient, Herr Kommandant.”

Stella realized she’d been baited when he flashed her a dazzling smile. “You’re a part of my staff now, Stella, and under my protection. You will
submit
”—he discharged the word with distaste—“to no one. Verstehen?”

Amazed and relieved, she nodded.

“Are you certain you grasp my meaning?” His voice took on a slight edge. “If Hermann touches you again, I will kill him.”

Stella’s reassurances faltered. What if he questioned the captain and learned the truth, that she had initiated the kiss? It would be her word against Hermann’s. Who would the colonel believe?

Drawing a steady breath, she nodded. Her path had been chosen, for the boy’s sake. There was no turning back.

The clock chimed to strike the hour. Ten o’clock. “It’s late. We have a long day planned for tomorrow,” he said.

“Of course, Herr Kommandant.”

Stella started to move away, eager for the sanctuary of her room. He stayed her with a hand on her shoulder. “I’ve discovered one truth about you in our time together, Fräulein.”

She held her breath.

“You’ve got quite a temper.”

Her cheeks warmed.

“You also have passion. Probably more than you should.” As he leaned closer, his spicy breath grazed her cheek. “Remember, there’s a fine line between passion and foolishness. Be careful you do not cross it.”

A warning? She should have been alarmed by his words, angry at the very least. But his nearness overwhelmed her, the heat of his hand on her shoulder, the smell of his skin. He turned his face into hers, so close that their lips almost touched. She studied the features she once thought so hard and unyielding, now generous, encouraging . . .

He’d promised her protection.
And who will save me from you, Colonel, or
from myself?
She felt her resolve weakening against him, her savior, her champion . . . her jailer.

She dropped her gaze to the front of his tunic. The Knight’s Cross and his broad array of medals blazed in the firelight. Glittering prizes for murder.

“No.” She pushed at him, mortified that she’d nearly participated in her own seduction. How could she forget who he was and what he represented? “Please, I can’t!” she whispered.

“Stella, I only want—” He stopped himself and released her. “Be downstairs for breakfast at seven,” he said, his hard mask back in place. “We leave for the ghetto at eight.”

He spun on his heel toward the dining room. Stella stood unmoving. When he glanced back, she saw fury etched into every hard-edged plane of his face. “For pity’s sake, go to bed!”

Then he disappeared from view.

Stella slowly made her way up the stairs. She should feel relieved; the colonel had kept his word. He hadn’t forced her. Yet any consolation she might harbor felt dampened by an inane sense of loss.

Back in her room, she saw the Bible had again materialized atop the nightstand. She sat on the edge of the bed and held the book in her lap, letting it fall open to a random page: Solomon’s Song of Songs.
“Let him kiss me
with the kisses of his mouth—for your love is
more delightful than wine.”

Stella quickly closed the book and tucked it back inside the drawer. With a furtive movement, she pressed a finger to her lips and tried to imagine how his kiss might have felt, allowing herself a candid glimpse into her own traitorous feelings.

 10 

Now the king was attracted to Esther more than to any of the other women. . . .

Esther 2:17

H
e’d nearly kissed her.

Aric extracted the cork from the chilled bottle of Pouilly-Fuisse and brooded over his recklessness. After pouring himself a glass of pale wine, he returned to the living room and sank into the chair Stella had vacated. Stretching out his legs in front of the hearth, he massaged each thigh with his free hand, working to relieve the agonizing cramps in his muscles.

He’d nearly kissed her—and murdered his captain in front of witnesses. The lingering rage he felt both disturbed and gratified him. Aric toyed with the idea of going out to the barracks to jerk Hermann from a sound sleep and put a bullet through his head; not unlike the urge he fought little more than an hour ago, but then only Stella’s lack of resistance had saved the man’s useless life. The devastating possibility that she’d wanted Hermann’s attentions . . .

You’re such a fool, Schmidt, believing your actions had
to do with good deeds.

Again he recalled his first sight of her standing before her
executioners. Tall and reed thin, her delicate features drawn while bruised lips pursed over her chattering teeth. Yet it wasn’t her raw-boned features that had compelled him as much as her eyes. Dove’s eyes, large and slightly tilted, filled her entire face. Cerulean pools drenched his memory with images of boyhood summers in Austria. Startlingly clear, like the stream rushing along the backside of his father’s estate.

Those eyes . . . Aric released a self-deprecating laugh as he tipped his glass to swirl its golden contents. He should have realized his folly then, that he’d intended more than to simply feed her, dress her in new clothes, and send her on her way. Erasing one or two black marks from his soul—that is, if he still had one.

He downed the last of the wine, hoping to dull the incessant pain in his legs and the tightness in his gut for the task that lay before him.

Eichmann issued the command. During the first of the year, the Red Army had gained force while Germany lost substantial ground. In the event the enemy managed to break through Wehrmacht lines, the Reich had decided to minimize any visible wrongdoing.

Aric was ordered to get rid of the evidence.

So far, he’d been able to stall—until tonight when Captain Hoth informed him the aggressive Allied bombing in the East had prompted the SS-Obersturmbannführer to move up the date for the “cleanup” process.

In approximately two weeks—once the Red Cross departed—Aric must act. Even now he wasn’t sure he had the stomach for it. And Stella, being raised by Jews . . .

He stared into the fire. She’d refused him tonight, mocking the attraction he’d seen in her brightened eyes and flushed cheeks. Still, he hadn’t pressed her; he’d given his word to protect her, noble idiot that he was.

But he couldn’t shield her from his duty. Once he executed
his orders, she would loathe the very sight of him. How could she not, when he would despise himself?

He remembered his foolish vow to set her free. Either way, he would lose her.

Desperation hit him with brutal force. Aric leaned forward and bowed his head in an action he hadn’t performed since boyhood, at his mother’s bedside.

Prayer hadn’t worked for him then, either. Still . . .