The End of War - A Novel of the Race for Berlin - [World War II 02] (57 page)

“No. Thank you.”

“Please. Let me show you. This will buy food.”

Lottie expects him to slide under the door a wad of bills or some precious stones. She’s prepared to think of the Jew that he has been hoarding his valuables to the last minute, until they are all on the verge of starvation.

Between her feet and Mutti’s slides a cloth yellow star. It is the brand of shame all German Jews were made to wear, before they were taken away.

“When the city falls, anyone with one of these ought to get decent treatment. Even from the Russians.”

Lottie stares at the six-pointed star on the floor.

The Jew says, “Sell it, Lottie. It should be worth something good. It’s the blood of the lamb.”

“No,” Freya says. “Julius, no, you have to keep that. Lottie and I are women, we’ll be fine. But you’re a man, you’ll be suspected of being a deserter or something. You need some way to prove you weren’t one of them. No.”

“Lottie. Take it. For food.”

The Jew is right. This will have value. This may be someone else’s salvation, someone with money.

“All right.”

Lottie scoops the star off the floor. She folds it into her pocket. She’ll make Mutti sell it later; Lottie doesn’t know how, and Mutti seems to have become an expert in the black market. But she will accept it, and they will get food. Maybe the Jew Julius can have something more than boiled potatoes tomorrow for his holiday.

Lottie says, “Thank you.” She puts her hand back into her mother’s lap and they twine fingers.

They sit like this without speaking for a while. Lottie closes her eyes, letting her head sag to her mother’s shoulder.

The front door jolts under a sudden knock.

Freya and Lottie both start at the sound. They stand, smoothing their skirts in the same way. Lottie walks behind Mutti down the hall to the door.

“Yes?” Freya calls through the door.

“Open up please,
Fräulein “

“Who is it?”

“Open up, please. It’s the police.”

The Gestapo.

Lottie shoots a panicked gape at Freya. Her mother holds up both palms and pushes them down, pantomiming calm, hold it in, daughter. Our lives depend on it.

Freya unlocks the door and pulls it open.

“Yes, gentlemen?”

There are four men on the stoop. They wear the black uniforms of the secret police, swastika armbands, hard-brimmed hats. Lots of leather gleams on their hands, feet, and at their waists. They are spick-and-span in a city of filth and destruction.

“Fräulein,
good afternoon. May we come in?”

All four of them are short and a bit round, pale and blue-eyed, cookie-cutter demons from a white-flour dough. They do not blink. The one speaking puts almost no inflection in his voice. They wear guns on their belts. Lottie wonders which one of these hit the door so hard it rattled on its hinges.

“Yes, of course.”

Freya turns aside, Lottie does too, and the four Gestapo men stride inside. Freya leaves the door open behind them. One of the policemen closes it.

The speaker inclines his head to Lottie.

“Ladies. We are searching this neighborhood for volunteers.”

The Gestapo must be combing the city to put every remaining man in the
Volkssturm.

Freya smiles. She even comes up with a laugh. Lottie is amazed at her performance.

“Mein Hen,
I would’ve liked nothing better than to have some men here I could give you. It wouldn’t have been so lonely for me and my daughter.”

The Gestapo men chortle with Mutti, at the ribaldness of her reply. The one who speaks quits laughing first.

“Then you won’t mind if we conduct a quick search through your house.”

Lottie’s lungs squeeze adrenaline. It’s over, she thinks.

Tell them! Tell them now, before they find the Jew themselves. They’ll go easier on you if you admit it! They’ll save your life. Mutti won’t do it, never would she tell. Lottie screams at herself, Tell them!

“Feel free, gentlemen.” Mutti ushers them into the house. Behind them, Lottie’s knees almost give way, she rights herself against the hallway wall.

Freya breezes, “You’ll forgive me if I have no tea to offer you.”

The Gestapo men wave off the suggestion.

One officer stays in the hall where he can see both front and back doors. The others travel through the house one room at a time. They do not spread out but move in a pack, in case they should happen upon someone tucked in a closet or behind a sofa. One of the policemen proceeds with his hand resting on his pistol at his hip. They first go upstairs. They look in every place a man might hide, under beds, behind doors and furniture. In her bedroom Lottie is even asked to open her cello case. Freya tells them her daughter plays with the Berlin Philharmonic. Lottie receives flirty, raised eyebrows and curt nods.

Downstairs the three search the parlor quickly, there are no good hiding places in this room. Passing along the hall, the speaking officer stops in front of the yellow basement door. He lays a black gloved hand flat on a panel, as though trying to sense what’s behind it. The other two make quick work of the kitchen, glancing inside shelves, even drawers. There is nothing in the rear yard, just dead ground.

“Open this,” the officer at the yellow door says. “Your basement, yes?”

Mutti moves forward. “Yes.”

Now, Lottie thinks. You have one more second to spare your fife. Confess! They won’t shoot you if you admit! Tell them!

Lottie does not move. Too late. Mutti shows no fear while she swings in the door and precedes the Gestapo down the basement steps. Lottie takes a deep breath, she hears how shaky it is.

Lottie stays up in the hall. In the next second when they haul the Jew up from his lair she will scream that she didn’t know! They will take Mutti away, they will take the Jew away. Lottie will claim she had no idea he was down there. The Jew will hear what she says, Mutti will hear too, and they will lie to protect her. No, they’ll insist, Lottie did not know. We kept it a secret to protect her. Spare Lottie.

Downstairs she hears her mother slide back the blackout curtains from the lone basement window to let in light. There are no shouts of arrest and accusation. No conversation.

Lottie moves to the head of the stairs. She has not glanced in this open door for months. There is the top step, where the Jew sits. It’s a board of wood, empty. She treads on it and then goes the rest of the way down to the last step, into the basement.

The room is crowded with the three Gestapo men, Mutti, and Lottie. The basement is bare, except for a foam mattress on the floor, one cane chair, and a copy of
Völkische Beobachter,
the Nazi newspaper. The paper’s bold headline is the death of the American President.

“Sometimes when the air raids come so late,” Mutti says, “my daughter and I walk down here instead of going off to the bunkers.” Mutti points out the newspaper on the chair. “My reading.”

Lottie marvels. Where is the Jew? The Gestapo agents comb through the closet, they tap on the four walls for secret hollow spaces behind them. There is no evidence that a man has lived down here almost every minute for the last twelve weeks. How can this be?

The lead officer purses his lips and casts his eyes around the basement. He picks up the shouting Nazi newspaper.

“That bastard Roosevelt is dead,” he says, black-and-white like the paper in his hand.

Freya crosses her arms. “I’d rather it be one of the damned bomber pilots who’s dead. I don’t care who runs America, just who drops bombs on me.”

Lottie thinks her mother talks too much to these vipers. They cannot be charmed.

The officer lays the paper where he found it on the chair.

“Yes. Thank you,
Fräulein.
I apologize if we have inconvenienced you.”

“Not at all.” Mutti replaces the thick curtain, darkening the basement. Lottie pivots on the bottom step and is the first one up. She heads into the kitchen, knowing the Gestapo will go the other way to the front door to leave the house.

“You understand,” the speaking officer says, ”we must defend Berlin. To the last, if need be.”

“Of course,” Freya agrees. “Berlin is Berlin, after all.”

“I wish you luck,
Fräulein,
you and your lovely daughter.
Heil Hitler.”

“Yes, of course,” Mutti says, making some high wave with her hand to approximate a parting salute.

Mutti holds open the door. The four men exit the house. The moment Mutti closes the door behind them, Lottie feels a rupture of control inside her. Her body begins to quiver.

Freya comes to her quickly. She wraps Lottie in her arms, shifting her to sit in a kitchen chair. Lottie feels frozen by the fear that has been an icy torrent through her for the past five minutes. Her quaking worsens in her mother’s embrace.

“Liebchen, Liebchen,”
Mutti soothes, “it’s all right. They’re gone. Shhhh. It’s all right.”

After a minute Lottie manages to swallow, her throat eases its constriction. She wrings her hands for warmth, finds it, and nods to her mother. Mutti takes the chair close beside her.

Lottie looks into Freya’s face, expecting to find relief and some footprints of withdrawing terror. Mutti’s face shines, all teeth and crinkled eyes. Lottie is assaulted again by the awful sense that she is not strong, not brave like Freya, or not magical and invisible like the Jew. She feels like she’s been the butt of an appalling joke.

She slaps at her mother’s arm.

“Where was he?”

Freya laughs now, that is how she breaks the spell of her fear. She laughs hard, gripping Lottie’s leg, slapping playfully back at her daughter. Lottie cannot help it, she doesn’t know where the Jew hid and Freya does. She was so scared with the Gestapo in the house, she almost screamed.

“Mutti, goddammit, where was he?”

Freya’s mirth slinks away at the curse. She blinks now at Lottie, calmer.

“We couldn’t tell you. There are secrets,
Liebchen,
that have to be kept secrets. Always.”

“Tell me now.”

“Julius and I have always known there would come a time like this. When he would have to hide in the basement. We clean up after every meal. We sweep every bit of dust. He lives without books and papers. I take downstairs a fresh
Völkische Beobachter
every few days, to impress whoever comes looking that we’re loyal to their cause.”

“Mutti. You should have warned me at least there was a plan.” Lottie does not admit, and will never admit again to herself, that she almost betrayed her mother and Julius. “Where was he?”

“Lottie. You understand.”

“Yes, Mutti, yes. I understand. Now tell me. Where was he?”

Mutti leans close. She lowers her voice.

“The foam mattress. Julius and I carved out a man-shaped hole in the back. He pulled it over him and lay down.”

Lottie too cannot stop a nervous giggle now. Oh, she thinks, oh dear God, what if one of those Gestapo had kicked the mattress with his foot? What if he’d sat down to ease his feet? Oh.