The Children's War (56 page)

“What do you want?” she finally acknowledged him, her voice devoid of emotion.

Suddenly his presumptuousness seemed foolish. Nevertheless, he placed his hand lightly on her shoulder and said, “I just wanted to tell you, I’m sorry about your son.”

She whirled around to face him; he expected her anger, was not surprised by her indignation. After all, what did he know? How could he understand! It was his sort who were responsible! How dare he touch her! He flinched expecting her to hit him, but instead she stunned him by throwing her arms around his neck and burying her head in his chest, crying, “My boy, my little boy!”

Nervously, he put his arm around her and held her as she sobbed. She continued to press herself against him, and he felt the warmth of her body as he stroked her back and soothed, “I’m sorry,” over and over.

Eventually, she pulled herself together and pulled away from him. “Get me a cup of tea,” she said softly.

By the time he returned, she had composed herself. “You had no business reading that telegram,” she stated coldly.

“I know,” he replied just as coldly. He poured the tea and left her alone with her thoughts. They would both act as though it had never happened.

56

“I
SEE NO REASON
you can’t join the class. Our next meeting . . .” Adam interrupted himself as he saw a sudden change of expression in the boy’s face that sent alarm bells ringing inside his head. Casually, he stood to leave the cafó, making a quick excuse as he did so, but before he could even turn, he felt someone approach and the muzzle of a gun was pressed into his back.

“Herr Teacher, don’t move,” the one with the gun said.

“I’m sorry,” the boy whispered. “They have my brother.”

“I’m not a teacher,” Adam said. “You have the wrong man.”

“You’re under arrest,” the voice behind Adam said.

Adam dropped his head slightly so he could see a bit behind him. There were at least three of them. One with the gun in his back and one on either side of him, out of reach. “I said, I’m not a teacher. Look at my papers, you’ll see, I work in the textile mill.”

The one holding the gun laughed and jammed it into his back. “I’m sure you do, and in the evening you meet with your little group of traitors and spread your lies in your swinish language. Now, come with us.”

Adam went with them and was led to a car. He was seated in the back, with a policeman on either side. His fingers picked worriedly at a bit of loose thread in the fabric of the car seat as his mind worked feverishly trying to weigh up his situation. No handcuffs, that was a good sign. They seemed to believe his cover story; that was also probably good. So far it looked like a simple betrayal of a teacher by a student. That meant, of course, that they would not know he could be ransomed and so they might be careless with him; on the other hand, they were unlikely to ask dangerous questions. If they did not realize how much he knew, they could not tear the information out of him. Better safe than sorry, he decided, he would hold with the cover story as long as it lasted and hope that the Szaflary team could locate and rescue him without his tipping them off.

“What’s the matter, teacher? You look worried,” one of his guards taunted.

“I’m not a teacher.”

“It’s a capital offense, you know, teaching unauthorized classes.”

“I realize that. I’m not a teacher, though.”

The guard on the other side of him snickered. “I bet you’ll admit it soon enough.” He boxed Adam lightly on the face. “They all do.”

Adam nodded. He felt sick to his stomach.

In the police station his papers were inspected and he was searched.

“You didn’t take this off him right away?” the burly sergeant asked, holding up the workman’s knife he had found in Adam’s pocket.

One of his guards shrugged and said,“No big deal.”

They took his shoes and his belt and led him to a cell that had three cement walls and a fourth wall composed entirely of bars. The old village lockup for drunks. Adam sat on the cot and rested his head on his hands. So far so good. They did not suspect the cover story; he had been appropriately dressed and unarmed; they had treated him with a minimal courtesy. He wondered how long it would take Szaflary to notice his absence. Maybe he could talk his way out of the whole situation before that; after all, they apparently had only the word of one scared boy. Maybe, too, he could get a quick conviction and get his sentence commuted to a concentration camp. There he could hold out for quite a while until an escape was organized.

He rubbed his chin and thought what his textile worker would do. Deny it,
deny it all. Besides, a conviction would mean a confession, and that would mean they would want the names of students. It was information that he did not have and could not give them. His students were vetted and registered by people he never met; at the last he gave his final personal approval and admitted each into his class by telling them where and when the next meeting would take place. He had no names, no addresses; all he had were code numbers and the nicknames that he himself assigned to his students. The true names of his students were registered, along with their code numbers, with the government in exile in the free city of Manhattan, thousands of miles away, safely out of the Reich’s reach. That’s where the information about their scores was sent, that’s where their records and degrees were kept. At the end of the course, he left their grades at a dead drop, where he did not even meet the courier; after that, all the students kept was an anonymous certificate, a somewhat innocuous document that they could use as temporary proof of their education. He kept nothing at all.

He stood and went to the small window and looked out at the faint image of the stars against the bright night sky. Joanna would be looking at the same stars. He smiled and thought how he would tell her all about the bad men who had stopped him from coming home on time. Maybe there would be an exciting escape or some clever trickery in the story. She would clap her hands anytime something went right; her face would freeze with fear anytime he mentioned danger. Later, years later, he would repeat the story to her children, embellishing a bit here and there to make it more exciting, drawing out his words as he explained who these people were who had long ago been thrown out of their land and why they were so evil. Then he would take his grandchildren out for a walk into the peaceful night; they would climb a hill together, without passes, without papers, without inspections. There on the hilltop he would point out the stars and explain how he had looked at them through a tiny prison cell window, and how he had known then that everything would come out all right.

“Good morning, Herr Teacher, did you sleep well?”

“I’m not a teacher,” Adam responded, rubbing his eyes to wake himself. He had only been resting, and he knew that barely more than an hour had passed. He had heard the shift change at midnight, and the man who spoke to him now was apparently the replacement for the one who had arrested him.

“Come with me, we have some questions for you,” the policeman stated as he began to open the lock.

“Oh, can’t it wait until morning?”

The policeman opened the cell door and waited in silence. Adam rose and reluctantly followed him as he led the way down the hallway of the prison.

“Ah, Herr Teacher, welcome to our humble prison!” the lieutenant greeted him as he was led into a small, windowless room. He followed Adam’s gaze and gestured broadly. “Not as grand as your university,
Herr Professor Doktor,
but we do our best to accommodate our students here. Sit down, sit down!”

“I’m not a teacher,” Adam stated mordantly as he sat in the chair the lieutenant had indicated. Besides the chair there was only one other chair and a low table in the room. The lieutenant seated himself on the edge of the table, right in front of Adam.

“No, of course not!” The lieutenant grinned. “Today you’re a student,
my
student, and I have some exam questions to set before you.”

“Can’t this wait until morning?”

The lieutenant shook his head and clucked his tongue. “That’s not a very enthusiastic attitude! But, no, I’m afraid I’m on the night shift, and tonight, so are you! By morning, I’ll be going home to my good wife and a good breakfast of sausage and eggs and you . . . Well, we’ll see.” The lieutenant lit himself a cigarette and then offered Adam one. When Adam accepted, the lieutenant lit the cigarette for him. “Now, let’s get this over quickly. Tell me everything you know, like a good student.”

“I don’t know anything, I’m not a teacher.”

“The boy said you were.”

“He was scared, he’d say anything.”

“Why were you talking to him?”

“I thought I could buy some fruit through him. I wanted to impress a girl.”

“Fruit? An apple from the teacher?”

“I’m not a teacher.”

“Never mind that, we’ll get back to your lies later. Just tell me about yourself. As long as you keep talking, my friend there”—the lieutenant pointed toward the corner and a guard holding a rubber truncheon—“won’t have to hit you. If you stop, I’m afraid he will.”

Adam glanced at the guard; it was an age-old technique and the reason why he had memorized an entire lifetime of details for his cover story. It would, in any case, kill time, but he had to be careful not to let the story come out too pat. “I don’t know where to begin,” he stuttered, then hearing the guard approach, he said hurriedly, “There’s this girl, at the factory. She’s real pretty, you wouldn’t believe . . .”

Two hours later he was still talking, explaining the details of the equipment he worked with. “Enough of that,” his interrogator said suddenly. “Tell me about your family.”

Adam paused for breath. He heard the guard with the truncheon approach. Quickly he said, “Could I have a cup of tea?”

The interrogator cocked his head as if thinking about the request, then he nodded toward the guard. “Go get him some.”

Adam talked about his family as he sipped the tea. So far so good, he thought, though he was not particularly reassured by their show of civility. It was not unusual for an interrogation to begin gently and decay into sadism.

“Is that when you decided to become a teacher for the Underground?” the interrogator asked suddenly.

“I told you, I’m not a teacher.”

The interrogator sprang off the table and slammed the cup of tea out of Adam’s hand. “Enough of your lies!”

Adam sputtered, wiping his face with his arm. “It’s not a lie.”

“I don’t like liars!” the interrogator said as he gestured for the guard with the truncheon to come forward. “Show him.”

The guard raised the truncheon, but before he could swing it they were interrupted by an orderly at the door.
“Mein Herr!”
he hissed. “A visitor!”

That was quick, Adam thought, wondering at the same time how he came to be missed so quickly. Maybe somebody had spotted his arrest taking place. He glanced behind himself to see the visitor and was surprised that he did not recognize the SS officer who strode into the room.

“You’re overstepping your authority by interrogating this prisoner,” the officerasserted as he handed a sheaf of documents to the interrogator. “We’re taking him into our custody.”

“It was our arrest, we have the right to—”

“He’s coming with us.” The officer gestured to Adam to stand. Adam obeyed and followed him out of the room, leaving his interrogator and the guard behind. In the hall they were joined by two other SS men, and together they marched to the entrance. Once they were outside, they stopped and handcuffed Adam’s wrists behind his back.

“Is this really necessary?” Adam asked.

In response one of the guards shoved him down the short flight of steps. Adam stumbled to the bottom, struggling not to fall. Once he had regained his balance, he looked up angrily at his rescuers. What the hell were they playing at? They shoved him into a car and drove a short distance to another building, which he recognized as the local SS divisional office. As they pulled him out of the car and into the building, he swore quietly under his breath.

“So tell me,” the young officer asked, “why were you without papers?” He sat on the edge of his desk and surveyed Adam.

“I had papers!” Adam replied angrily. “I told the front desk that!” His hands were still bound behind him, and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

“Then where are they?”

“I don’t know. Apparently your friends at the police station kept them.” The officer looked over at his subordinate, who then volunteered, “We’re having-someone check on it. They claimed he came in without papers.”

“They have my belt and my shoes as well,” Adam pointed out.

The officer walked over to his subordinate. “Do you know what they’re up to?” he asked in a low voice.

“I think they’re upset we grabbed their prisoner,” the subordinate answered quietly.