“Not her.”
The men stepped away.
“Come with me.” He held a hand out to her and fished a handkerchief from his pocket. He pressed it to her eye. “Your nose is bleeding. Bend forward. Breathe slowly. It’s probably broken.” He was leading her through the service door and into the kitchen. He pushed her down onto the bench at the table, then went into the pantry. He returned with something from the icebox. Magda could not focus on it.
“Here, put this on the nose. Yup. It’s definitely broken.”
“Where’s Aleš?” Her voice sounded funny in her ears.
“He’ll be taken in for questioning. Don’t concern yourself with that now.”
“What are you going to do with me?”
“Me?” Walter stepped back, hands behind his back. “I won’t do anything to you. I’ll leave you here. There will be someone else you’ll have to deal with now that I’m done.”
Magda pressed the cold mass to her nose. The pain throbbed all across her face. Her eye was swelling shut. She tried to focus on Walter with her one good eye.
“So,” he said. “Where’s Renata?”
Indeed. Where was she? Magda shook her head slowly. “I don’t know. Where are you taking the Taubers?”
“Magdalena—”
“Stop calling me that.”
“Fine. If you want to survive this, if you don’t want to end up in a ghetto with your beloved Taubers, I would begin answering my questions.”
The door opened, and Magda jerked her head in its direction, but Walter waved whoever it was away. They were alone again.
“I don’t know where she is. She wasn’t here today. We told you that already.”
“Right.” Walter sighed. “You sure that’s your final answer?”
He dropped before her again and brushed some hair away from her shoulders. Magda squeezed her eyes shut.
“They made fun of me, you know? Taking the virginity of a girl with such a face as yours. You know what I did?”
She kept her eyes closed, but if the tears could not squeeze by, the pain had to come out of her somewhere, she had to breathe somehow. She took great gulps of air. Saliva hung from her mouth and landed on the hand in her lap.
Walter scoffed. “Yeah. You’re quite the mess. I fought them, Magda. That’s what I did. I beat Gustav up. Badly. He kept his mouth shut. Didn’t turn me in. Question is…”
His hand came on her forehead, and he shoved her head back on her neck as he stood before her. She forced her good eye to focus on him.
“The question is, can you? Can you keep your goddamned mouth shut?”
Magda blinked several times. “Yes. Yes, I can.” About what? She had no idea.
“Good.” He released her head. For the first time, she saw that he was deeply conflicted. “As far as I’m concerned, you know nothing. I’m gone tomorrow anyway. I have my marching orders.” He strode to the door and held it open. “Maybe I’ll see you. Maybe I won’t. Either way, Magda, all you need to do is survive. Stay smart and you’ve got a better chance than me. You’ve got one hour to get… Get your things out of here. One hour and they’ll all be back. Koenig’s taking over the house.”
He started to go out the door, stopped, and turned again. “I’ll put in a good word for you. You and Jana.”
When the last truck drove out of the gates, when the house was emptied of the invaders and Magda dared to leave the kitchen, it was she and Jana who stood staring at one another. Magda sprinted to the third floor, lifted the floorboards, and withdrew Samuel—fast asleep—out from beneath. She checked his breathing. It was shallow, but his pulse was steady. Jana reached for him, and Magda gave the baby to her.
“I don’t know where to take him,” Magda wailed.
“I do,” Jana said.
“Give him to me.”
Magda whirled around. Renata stood in the doorway.
Jana and Magda fetched a coat hanger to try and get deeper into the floors. They found a flashlight and pointed it inside until Magda finally found the remaining pillowcase beneath. Magda pulled it out and opened it. She recognized the bottles of liquids and pills. It was not a lot, but it was what they had been able to salvage from Dr. Tauber’s destroyed office before Koenig had returned. They had brought it all upstairs to put with the rest of the personal items and valuables.
“I knew there would be a time when these would be useful,” Jana said.
Magda squeezed Jana’s hand and stood up. Robert was crawling beneath the bed. Jana lay on the floor and fished him out.
Magda finished stuffing the medicine into her military bag. Robert was looking at her with more curiosity. She lowered herself onto the bed. “What happened after I left?”
Jana put him down again. “It took a day or two before either one of them realized. Frau Koenig insisted that the boy had been born this way. She still does. But the Obersturmbannführer went on a rampage.”
“Did he go after you?”
Jana made a noise and shrugged. “I’ve had to work hard to win their trust again, to at least the point where they leave Robert with me all the time now. Koenig won’t allow his son anywhere near anything to do with the party or official business.”
“What are they doing in Berlin?”
“What do I know?”
“Did you hear about Stalingrad?”
Jana nodded. “I imagine there’s an important emergency meeting, but he took Frau Koenig, so there might be something more ceremonial in all this than mere strategy meetings. You understand?”
“But he rejects his own son?”
“Koenig wanted to send them both away. Frau Koenig threw a fit. She even threatened to expose her husband. Apparently there are rumors that he is or was having an affair with a Slovakian woman. She held that over him and—” Jana shook her head. “She’s not a stupid woman by all means. I feel sorry for Frau Koenig.”
Magda sighed. Up to a point, she had felt sorry for the commander’s wife as well.
“Anyway, she threatened him. So the Obersturmbannführer punishes her in return by not allowing the boy to go anywhere. That’s how it goes. So he’s with me.”
“They never hired anyone new?”
“They didn’t want to.” She hesitated. “I suspect they think you’ll come back if I’m here.”
Magda considered this. “How are you managing?”
Jana shrugged, then looked down at the boy. “You know, if the tides really do turn—if Germany has to turn on its heel—they might use Robert to their advantage.” She eyed Magda. “As their pass out, that is. A Jewish family that has managed to hide this long. Look, my son is Jewish—he’s circumcised.”
Magda stared at the boy. They were all quiet.
“Well.” She stood. “We can’t let that happen, can we?”
Jana sniffed. She pulled Magda to her. “It’s good to see you, son.”
Magda laughed a little.
“It’s quite the elaborate costume to come to an empty house.”
They both laughed.
“I’m being tested,” Magda finally said. She was serious once more. “They want me to do more.”
“And you should. But is all this…” Jana pointed to Magda’s bag. “Is it really worth risking for one family?”
“They aren’t just one family,” Magda snapped. “They’re my family.”
Jana looked repentant. “He’s still after you, you know. He hasn’t stopped looking for you, and he hasn’t stopped looking for the midwife.”
“Do you know anything? Any word?”
Jana shook her head warily. “Why are you still in the district? Why haven’t Aleš and Renata gotten you out?”
“How? With this?” Magda put her hand on her left cheek.
“You could get rid of it. You can make it worse. What happened to you, son?” Jana reached out to touch the right side of Magda’s face.
“A wound.”
“Huh,” Jana breathed. She gazed at Magda’s other side. “As if you didn’t
have enough wounds already. A burn. A rather terrible face burn. That might set you free, don’t you think?”
The touch on Magda’s shoulder made her leap.
“It’s just me.” Karol smiled and brushed some hair out of his face.
“Sorry.” She waved a hand over the items on the ground before her. “I’m just looking at all this.”
“I like the idea.” Karol looked over his shoulder.
Renata leaned against the wall, arms folded, whispering with Aleš. Magda looked at them too. Renata and Aleš were fighting a war, yet still there was an energy between them that was always intimate, almost sexual, but not at the moment. Right now Magda was reminded of how they had been on the beach that summer. Something terrible was happening again.
Magda looked away.
Karol pointed at the box that Jana had given her. “Can I have a look? It’s a fantastic resource to have.”
She indicated for him to sit. “I had no idea that Jana knew so much. But she was around long before me, and she had a lot more contact to Anna Dvorákova.”
Karol nodded and lifted a packet. “Gelatin. Interesting.”
Renata strode over and squatted next to Magda. She lifted the silk strips, the glue, and the rouge. “This could work. Aleš says it’s not important about getting it perfect but to just make it real enough if they take a quick look at your face.”
Magda imagined Jana at the party she’d told Magda about. The Dvoráks had brought along a makeup artist. That evening the Taubers made a bet with the Dvoráks about illusions and stage makeup, and they had asked Jana to come into the drawing room. Would she volunteer to have her face done? Jana said yes. Jana asked questions, as was her nature. The result was a grotesque face burn.
“Jana said something similar,” Magda said. “People will see what they want to see. And with something hideous, they look away. Anyway, Jana remembered the basics. Frau Koenig’s makeup is the only problem. If she discovers it’s missing, there will be questions.”
Renata nodded. “It’s interesting, either way.”
Was that all? Interesting?
Aleš called Karol over. It was their turn to go on patrol.
Magda watched them depart, then leaned back on her hands. “First things first. How are we going to get the medicines into Theresienstadt?”
Renata sat down and crossed her legs, her expression grave. “There’s been a change in plans.”
“What? Why?”
Renata licked her lips. “Listen, we’re nobodies here. We can’t get ourselves organized enough to actually do anything. We’re in a hotspot, you know that. Aleš’s brother has been brought in for questioning.”
Aleš brother was now a priest. “Is Father Gabriel, all right?”
Renata shook her head. “He was released, but they were asking him about Eva.”
Magda’s eyes widened. “And me?”
Renata closed her eyes briefly. “Yes. Look, there’s something else. Aleš has received word through the network that the resistance has organized itself into something more official. It’s called the R3, and we’re trying to join forces with them.”
“What about the Taubers?”
Renata took in a breath. “There is nothing we can do for them except to fight the Germans and liberate them when the time comes. Right now everything we try is going to be too great of a risk. Magda, listen, we need you. We need every person we can get.”
Magda began to throw the items back into the box. “I went there to get the medicines—”
“Medicines that we very well might need ourselves.”
Magda jerked her hand away from the box. She sprang up. “Is that what you sent me in there for? To get these for you? Not for the Taubers?”
“No, Magda. We wanted to help, but orders are—”
“Orders? Whose orders? We’re alone here!”
Jakob and Yanko appeared in the bunker. “Are we interrupting?”
Ignoring them, Renata rose and grabbed Magda by the shoulders. “Listen to me. What good are you if you are dead? Huh, Magda? What good?”
Magda wrenched herself away. “You’re killing me already, Renata.”
12
December 1942
With the cold winter, Aleš cut the length of the patrols and had more frequent rotations, which meant that Magda’s sleep was more interrupted than ever. After a week, her body automatically awoke after four hours.
One night, she could barely sleep. The air was thick in the bunker. Not even leaving the trapdoor ajar helped to circulate it. She often wondered whether—should they all fall asleep and not be awoken for a shift—they would just die down here for lack of oxygen.
Magda climbed up the ladder and welcomed the blast of cold air. It was so icy it seemed to freeze her nostrils closed. She blew into her wrapped hands. Renata had finally managed to scrounge up a pair of boots for her. She wrapped the shawl tightly around her face, not to cover herself but to protect herself against the cold. She thought of the nun’s habit that Father Gabriel had managed to get her. The coif and wimple would serve to hide her mark. Father Gabriel spent several hours with her, reviewing a nun’s behavior, how she would react to authority, and so on. Magda had felt utterly comfortable with the entire operation and the idea of the disguise. And if she really did have to go outside and into public, they could always create the burned face with the ingredients and materials she had.
The entire story was made up: She had been a nun since she was nineteen. There had been a kitchen fire. She had been badly burned. She was on her way back to her convent after being treated. But mostly, Father Gabriel said, he expected she would never have to go into that great of detail.
A stick snapped nearby.
“Karol?”
“Yeah.” He appeared, and they stood apart a little way.
Her heart did a little flip. It surprised her to realize that she looked forward to the way he could make her smile. “I couldn’t sleep,” she said.
“Are you still sore about the medicine?”
“I feel betrayed.”
“I can understand why you feel that way,” Karol said. “Aleš is right though. We don’t even know whether the medicines would make it to the Taubers, and the chances are relatively slim.”
“Everyone keeps telling me to be brave, to take risks, that I’m needed. And yet the one time where I know I can accomplish something to make a difference, they hold me back. I thought we were doing this to help people, to win the effort.”
“There is a cost to all of this,” Karol said.
“Then why can I not just be one of the casualties?”
She could tell by the way he flinched that he was taken aback. “What is it about the Taubers that makes you so—I don’t know—willing to put your life on the line?”
Magda thought about it. “They may as well be my family—”
“But they aren’t. You were employed by them.”
“I was the boy’s sandek.”
“You were? That’s why you’re called the Godmother. I thought it was because of what you did to the Koenigs’ son. That, by the way, required some true chutzpah.”
There it was. The smile. “I think it had to do with both children.”
“You wanted to avenge the Taubers, didn’t you?”
Magda closed her eyes. “Why does everyone say that?”
“Because that is what we do when we are really angry, when we’re really injured. We want to get back at the people who have hurt us. It’s natural, Magdalena.”
She looked up at him. “And what about forgiveness?”
Karol laughed. “That’s pretty sanctimonious for these days. The fewest of us are capable of that. It’s something to aim for, but in this craziness… I don’t know, don’t you just feel angry all the time?”
“I do. And I hate myself for it. And fear. And I am ashamed of that.”
“And now you’re angry with Aleš and Renata.”
“Yes. And I fear them a little. I don’t know wh
at they have planned.”
To keep warm, she started to walk, and he followed her. “What about you?” she asked. “The hate you must feel for what the Germans did to you, for the imprisonment in the ghetto. It’s got to be eating away at you. Do you think about killing them?”
Karol did not answer for a long time. “I’m glad the partisans are getting organized now. I’m in soldier mode now.”
“Have you ever killed a man?” She waited again.
Finally he said, “I haven’t. But I know I could if I had to.”
“What makes you think you could?”
“Because I value my life greatly. I’d do it to survive, to protect myself or my loved ones.”
“Did you have to protect loved ones before the Germans deported you?”
Karol took in a great breath. He stopped behind her.
“I don’t think I could ever kill someone,” Magda said quietly.
“You don’t know that.” He sounded angry.
“I’m sorry. Please. I don’t know what got into me.” I thought I could talk to you.
“Let’s talk about something lighter. What do you imagine your life will be like when this is all over?”
Magda scoffed, following him now as he passed her. “I can barely think past the next five minutes. My brain is freezing, and it’s not from the cold. Our days have become something of a minute-by-minute miracle, don’t you find?”
Karol’s hooded head bobbed up and down in front of her.
“What about you? What do you imagine?”
He turned, and she could sense his smile even in the dark, heard it in his voice. “Food. Lots of food.” He patted his middle. “Growing fat and happy, having a huge family, lots of children.”
Magda’s smile disappeared. “Really? You can imagine all that?”
Karol’s coat rustled. “I think I almost have to. Don’t you ever want to have children?”
“I have a child already. Samuel is my child. I am his godmother, and a godmother takes care of her godchild when the parents…” No. She was not going to finish the thought. Stick to the immediate five minutes.
The Road to Liberation: Trials and Triumphs of WWII Page 43
