Number the Stars (5 page)

Papa opened the front door to the soldiers.

“This is the Johansen apartment?” A deep voice asked the question loudly, in the terribly accented Danish.

“Our name is on the door, and I see you have a flashlight,” Papa answered. “What do you want? Is something wrong?”

“I understand you are a friend of your neighbors the Rosens, Mrs. Johansen,” the soldier said angrily.

“Sophy Rosen is my friend, that is true,” Mama said quietly. “Please, could you speak more softly?” My children are asleep.”

“Then you will be so kind as to tell me where the Rosens are.” He made no effort to lower his voice.

“I assume they are at home, sleeping. It is four in the morning, after all,” Mama said.

Annemarie heard the soldier stalk across the living room toward the kitchen. From her hiding place in the narrow sliver of open doorway, she could see the heavy uniformed man, a holstered pistol at his waist, in the entrance to the kitchen, peering in toward the sink.

Another German voice said, “The Rosens' apartment is empty. We are wondering if they might be visiting their good friends the Johansens.”

“Well,” said Papa, moving slightly so that he was standing in front of Annemarie's bedroom door, and she could see nothing except the dark blur of his back, “as you see, you are mistaken. There is no one here but my family.”

“You will not object if we look around.” The voice was harsh, and it was not a question.

“It seems we have no choice,” Papa replied.

“Please don't wake my children,” Mama requested again. “There is no need to frighten little ones.”

The heavy, booted feet moved across the floor again and into the other bedroom. A closet door opened and closed with a bang.

Annemarie eased her bedroom door closed silently. She stumbled through the darkness to the bed.

“Ellen,” she whispered urgently, “take your necklace off!”

Ellen's hands flew to her neck. Desperately she began trying to unhook the tiny clasp. Outside the bedroom door, the harsh voices and heavy footsteps continued.

“I can't get it open!” Ellen said frantically. “I never take it off—I can't even remember how to open it!”

Annemarie heard a voice just outside the door. “What is here?”

“Shhh,” her mother replied. “My daughters' bedroom. They are sound asleep.”

“Hold still,” Annemarie commanded. “This will hurt.” She grabbed the little gold chain, yanked with all her strength, and broke it. As the door opened and light flooded into the bedroom, she crumpled it into her hand and closed her fingers tightly.

Terrified, both girls looked up at the three Nazi officers who entered the room.

One of the men aimed a flashlight around the bedroom. He went to the closet and looked inside. Then with a sweep of his gloved hand he pushed to the floor several coats and a bathrobe that hung from pegs on the wall.

There was nothing else in the room except a chest of drawers, the blue decorated trunk in the corner, and a heap of Kirsti's dolls piled in a small rocking chair. The flashlight beam touched each thing in turn. Angrily the officer turned toward the bed.

“Get up!” he ordered. “Come out here!”

Trembling, the two girls rose from the bed and followed him, brushing past the two remaining officers in the doorway, to the living room.

Annemarie looked around. These three uniformed men were different from the ones on the street corners. The street soldiers were often young, sometimes ill at ease, and Annemarie remembered how the Giraffe had, for a moment, let his harsh pose slip and had smiled at Kirsti.

But these men were older and their faces were set with anger.

Her parents were standing beside each other, their faces tense, but Kirsti was nowhere in sight. Thank goodness that Kirsti slept through almost everything. If they had wakened her, she would be wailing—or worse, she would be angry, and her fists would fly.

“Your names?” the officer barked.

“Annemarie Johansen. And this is my sister—”

“Quiet! Let her speak for herself. Your name?” He was glaring at Ellen.

Ellen swallowed. “Lise,” she said, and cleared her throat. “Lise Johansen.”

The officer stared at them grimly.

“Now,” Mama said in a strong voice, “you have seen that we are not hiding anything. May my children go back to bed?”

The officer ignored her. Suddenly he grabbed a handful of Ellen's hair. Ellen winced.

He laughed scornfully. “You have a blond child sleeping in the other room. And you have this blond daughter—” He gestured toward Annemarie with his head. “Where did you get the dark-haired one?” He twisted the lock of Ellen's hair. “From a different father? From the milkman?

Papa stepped forward. “Don't speak to my wife in such a way. Let go of my daughter or I will report you for such treatment.”

“Or maybe you got her someplace else?” the officer continued with a sneer. “From the Rosens?”

For a moment no one spoke. Then Annemarie, watching in panic, saw her father move swiftly to the small bookcase and take out a book. She saw that he was holding the family photograph album. Very quickly he searched through its pages, found what he was looking for, and tore out three pictures from three separate pages.

He handed them to the German officer, who released Ellen's hair.

“You will see each of my daughters, each with her name written on the photograph,” Papa said.

Annemarie knew instantly which photographs he had chosen. The album had many snapshots—all the poorly focused pictures of school events and birthday parties. But it also contained a portrait, taken by a photographer, of each girl as a tiny infant. Mama had written, in her delicate handwriting, the name of each baby daughter across the bottom of those photographs.

She realized too, with an icy feeling, why Papa had torn them from the book. At the bottom of each page, below the photograph itself, was written the date. And the real Lise Johansen had been born twenty-one years earlier.

“Kirsten Elisabeth,” the officer read, looking at Kirsti's baby picture. He let the photograph fall to the floor.

“Annemarie,” he read next, glanced at her, and dropped the second photograph.

“Lise Margrete,” he read finally, and stared at Ellen for a long, unwavering moment. In her mind, Annemarie pictured the photograph that he held: the baby, wide-eyed, propped against a pillow, her tiny hand holding a silver teething ring, her bare feet visible below the hem of an embroidered dress. The wispy curls. Dark.

The officer tore the photograph in half and dropped the pieces on the floor. Then he turned, the heels of his shiny boots grinding into the pictures, and left the apartment. Without a word, the other two officers followed. Papa stepped forward and closed the door behind him.

Annemarie relaxed the clenched fingers of her right hand, which still clutched Ellen's necklace. She looked down, and saw that she had imprinted the Star of David into her palm.

6

“We must think what to do,” Papa said. “They are suspicious, now. To be honest, I thought that if they came here at a1l—and I hoped they wouldn't—that they would just glance around, see that we had no place to hide anyone, and would go away.”

“I'm sorry I have dark hair,” Ellen murmured. “It made them suspicious.”

Mama reached over quickly and took Ellen's hand. “You have beautiful hair, Ellen, just like your mama's,” she said. “Don't ever be sorry for that. Weren't we lucky that Papa thought so quickly and found the pictures? And weren't we lucky that Lise had dark hair when she was a baby? It turned blond later on, when she was two or so.”

“In between,” Papa added, “she was bald for a while!”

Ellen and Annemarie both smiled tentatively. For a moment their fear was eased.

Tonight was the first time, Annemarie realized suddenly, that Mama and Papa had spoken of Lise. The first time in three years.

Outside, the sky was beginning to lighten. Mrs. Johansen went to the kitchen and began to make tea.

“I've never been up so early before,” Annemarie said. “Ellen and I will probably fall asleep in school today!”

Papa rubbed his chin for a moment, thinking. “I think we must not take the risk of sending you to school today,” he said. “It is possible that they will look for the Jewish children in the schools.”

“Not go to school?” Ellen asked in amazement. “My parents have always told me that education is the most important thing. Whatever happens, I must get an education.”

“This will only be a vacation, Ellen. For now, your safety is the most important thing. I'm sure your parents would agree. Inge?” Papa called Mama in the kitchen, and she came to the doorway with a teacup in her hand and a questioning look on her face.

“Yes?”

“We must take the girls to Henrik's. You remember what Peter told us. I think today is the day to go to your brother's.”

Mrs. Johansen nodded. “I think you are right. But I will take them. You must stay here.”

“Stay here and let you go alone? Of course not. I wouldn't send you on a dangerous trip alone.”

Mama put a hand on Papa's arm. “If only I go with the girls, it will be safer. They are unlikely to suspect a woman and her children. But if they are watching us—if they see all of us leave? If they are aware that the apartment is empty, that you don't go to your office this morning? Then they will know. Then it will be dangerous. I am not afraid to go alone.”

It was very seldom that Mama disagreed with Papa. Annemarie watched his face and knew that he was struggling with the decision. Finally he nodded, reluctantly.

“I will pack some things,” Mama said. “What time is it?”

Papa looked at his watch. “Almost five,” he said.

“Henrik will still be there. He leaves around five. Why don't you call him?”

Papa went to the telephone. Ellen looked puzzled. “Who is Henrik? Where does he go at five in the morning?” she asked.

Annemarie laughed. “He's my uncle—my mother's brother. And he's a fisherman. They leave very early, all the fishermen, each morning—their boats go out at sunrise.

“Oh, Ellen,” she went on. “You will love it there. It is where my grandparents lived, where Mama and Uncle Henrik grew up. It is so beautiful—right on the water. You can stand at the edge of the meadow and look across to Sweden!”

She listened while Papa spoke on the telephone to Uncle Henrik, telling him that Mama and the children were coming for a visit. Ellen had gone into the bathroom and closed the door; Mama was still in the kitchen. So only Annemarie was listening.

It was a very puzzling conversation.

“So, Henrik, is the weather good for fishing?” Papa asked cheerfully, and listened briefly.

Then he continued, “I'm sending Inge to you today with the children, and she will be bringing you a carton of cigarettes.

“Yes, just one,” he said, after a moment. Annemarie couldn't hear Uncle Henrik's words. “But there are a lot of cigarettes available in Copenhagen now, if you know where to look,” he went on, “and so there will be others coming to you as well, I'm sure.”

But it wasn't true. Annemarie was quite certain it wasn't true. Cigarettes were the thing that Papa missed, the way Mama missed coffee. He complained often—he had complained only yesterday—that there were no cigarettes in the stores. The men in his office, he said, making a face, smoked almost anything: sometimes dried weeds rolled in paper, and the smell was terrible.

Why was Papa speaking that way, almost as if he were speaking in code? What was Mama
really
taking to Uncle Henrik?

Then she knew. It was Ellen.

 

The train ride north along the Danish coast was very beautiful. Again and again they could see the sea from the windows. Annemarie had made this trip often to visit her grandparents when they were alive, and later, after they were gone, to see the cheerful, suntanned, unmarried uncle whom she loved.

But the trip was new to Ellen, who sat with her face pressed to the window, watching the lovely homes along the seaside, the small farms and villages.

“Look!” Annemarie exclaimed, and pointed to the opposite side. “It's Klampenborg, and the Deer Park! Oh, I wish we could stop here, just for a little while!”

Mama shook her head. “Not today,” she said. The train did stop at the small Klampenborg station, but none of the few passengers got off. “Have you ever been there, Ellen?” Mama asked, but Ellen said no.

“Well, someday you will go. Someday you will walk through the park and you will see hundreds of deer, tame and free.”

Kirsti wriggled to her knees and peered through the window. “I don't see any deer!” she complained.

“They are there, I'm sure,” Mama told her. “They're hiding in the trees.”

The train started again. The door at the end of their car opened and two German soldiers appeared. Annemarie tensed. Not here, on the train, too? They were
everywhere.

Together the soldiers strolled through the car, glancing at passengers, stopping here and there to ask a question. One of them had something stuck in his teeth; he probed with his tongue and distorted his own face. Annemarie watched with a kind of frightened fascination as the pair approached.

One of the soldiers looked down with a bored expression on his face. “Where are you going?” he asked.

“Gilleleje,” Mama replied calmly. “My brother lives there. We are going to visit him.”

The soldier turned away and Annemarie relaxed. Then, without warning, he turned back. “Are you visiting your brother for the New Year?” he asked suddenly.

Mama stared at him with a puzzled look. “New Year?” she asked. “It is only October.”

“And guess what!” Kirsti exclaimed suddenly, in a loud voice, looking at the soldier.