“So this is what Reinhardt sends me?” sighed a man’s voice. “Let’s hope they look more impressive once they’re cleaned up.”
“Don’t knock the grime and coal dust, Dengler,” said a woman’s voice. “It’s good camouflage, and unlike most things, it’s free!”
The man chuckled and leaned the flashlight against a wall, allowing a splash of diffused light to orient the newcomers. They were in what had once been a parlor but now served as a meeting room, complete with a long scarred wooden table, chipped cups of cold coffee, and piles of maps.
Dengler was about thirty years old. He had rugged good looks and an air of confidence, but his speech betrayed his lower class origins. “We have one full day to rehearse the plan,” he said to the group. “You newcomers can take two hours for food and rest. I know there are friends and comrades who haven’t seen each other in some time, but you’ll have to keep the reunions short. Shultz; Ludwig. You have guard duty.”
Adolf ran his gaze over the dozen or so members of Dengler’s group. Several were exchanging emotional greetings with Adolf’s companions from Reinhardt’s group. Since there would be no old friends waiting for him here, Adolf began to look for food and a likely spot to rest. Then the world stopped as he tried to make sense out of a face that his brain told him was familiar.
“Well, Adolf, I was wondering when I’d bump into you.”
“Frederic!” cried Adolf, as the voice and face materialized into a ghost from his past. “You’re alive!” Adolf nearly mowed down several fellow revolutionaries in his haste to reach his old schoolmate.
“For the moment,” said Frederic, throwing his arms around Adolf in an awkward embrace. “I knew you’d make it out somehow. But I never expected to see you with these ruffians.”
“What are you doing here?”
Instead of answering, Frederic glanced at another young man, hovering at his elbow. He was a few years older than Adolf and Frederic, clearly Aryan, and looked vaguely familiar, though Adolf could swear he’d never met the man.
“This is Adolf Zelig,” said Frederic. “Our Brigitta was his sister.”
Adolf felt his stomach tighten at the word was. Here, at last, was his chance to learn of the fate of his loved ones, and now he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. He thought of the shy young girl, who had only been in their group for a few months. After an awkward silence, he turned to Zelig. “What happened to her?” he asked.
“She was picked up by the Gestapo before I could get to her. If I’d found out just a few hours earlier I…” Frederic squeezed the other man’s shoulder and shook his head, as if they’d had this discussion more than once.
Zelig went on. “They sent her to a brothel somewhere. Not even an SS place, since they don’t want her traitorous tendencies to be passed on to future Aryans.” His voice shook. “The real irony here is that my whole family has been up to its eyeballs in illegal activities for years. Last year, things started coming apart, so I insisted we send Brigitta off to college so she’d be safe!”
“If he hadn’t come looking for his sister—against all common sense I might add—I’d be dead now,” said Frederic. “I was still trying to figure out what was going on and where to hide. Fortunately, Zelig’s background was a bit more useful. He hid me in a cellar for three weeks before he decided it was safe to leave Berlin.”
Adolf turned back to the other Adolf. “You mentioned your family’s long time involvement in illegal activities. If I may be so bold, what kind were they? Were you involved with Jewish writing…?”
“I’d never even heard of the Jews, other than what we learned in grammar school! If I’d known Brigitta was involved with that sort of thing, I’d have pulled her from the school!
“Believe it or not, I’m a patriot. My family’s been trying to fight the corrupt leadership that’s invaded the Reich in recent years. I never intended to destroy it, but I’m not left with much choice now.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” said Adolf. He turned to Frederic. “Do you know anything about the others? Krista? Franz? Ilsa?” Adolf gulped back the last name, afraid Frederic might know something more recent than her letter.
Frederic’s face grew grim in the meager light. “It was a well stocked hideout. There was a vid set; and Zelig had a radio not tuned to government channels. Krista was executed just a few days after we were all denounced. It was a group execution. ‘Sexual deviants’ the announcer said.”
“I guess a short, myopic lesbian didn’t have much of a chance for anything—not even a life in brothel.”
“You forgot to mention poor,” said Frederic. “No. She never had a chance. However, if a brothel was the alternative, I’d guess she would have preferred death.
“Franz was captured, but there’s been no official word on him. He’s probably in some high-level security prison somewhere. I heard that Karl got pulled in for questioning, even though he’d been out of contact with us for years. They released him, presumably after seizing all his assets and ruining his name. I don’t know where he is now.”
“And…my family?”
“Still alive and free, last I heard. Your father must have some major stuff on a lot of powerful people, to be able to hang onto what little he still has—not to mention pull off that story about you!”
“What story about me?”
“You haven’t head? Why, Adolf, you’ve been kidnapped by terrorists! At least that’s what your grieving parents and their high level friends are saying. That way, they can explain your disappearance without denouncing a Goebbels as a traitor or spending scarce resources tracking you down. I expect that soon, your ‘body’ will be discovered, all of Germany will mourn, your death will be avenged—against whichever group the Party wants cleansed at the time—and it will all be forgotten.”
“My God,” said Adolf. He stared at his friend, trying to make sense of it all. His family was safe, but who knew how many innocents would soon die in his name? “They’re not even searching for me?”
Zelig shook his head. “Not officially. But don’t relax your vigilance for an instant. The Party still wants to get its hands on you. And once you’re declared dead, it will be doubly dangerous for you to surface.”
Adolf nodded, still a bit numb. “What about your family,” he belatedly asked Frederic.
“Not so fortunate as yours,” he said through clenched teeth. “My father committed suicide, and my brother’s wife divorced him. I still have some hope of finding him and my mother. That’s one of the reason I’m with Dengler and Zelig. They have the best intelligence in the underground.”
“Or so we keep telling him,” said Zelig. There was an awkward pause. “Let’s get some rest,” he added. “We have important work to do. And reunions like these can take a lot out of even the strongest men.”
It was the stillness that Adolf would always remember.
For the longest time, nothing moved as he crouched by the train track with the other fifteen volunteers. Don’t move, Adolf reminded himself. Don’t breathe. Don’t grip your Mauser so tight you cut off your circulation. Or perhaps in my case, shoot myself.
They had only the stars for light and wore black clothing as camouflage. To their left, the tunnel through which the train must pass was rigged with an almost laughably simple booby trap. As it was standard for all trains on official Party business to have one guard atop each car, a thin wire had been stretched across the end of the tunnel at what they all hoped would be the right height. As the train exited, the first guard would be knocked over—either off the train or into the guard behind him—followed by the next and the next, until, hopefully, all had been rendered “non combative” as Dengler put it.
Like dominoes. Like bowling balls. No one would have to fire a shot.
Burning garbage across the track just outside the tunnel would force the engineer to stop the train. Then there would only be him and a few guards in the caboose to deal with.
Adolf crouched in the wet grass, and wondered if an
ything ever went according to plan in this life.
The lonesome whistle of the approaching train galvanized everyone into action. The tunnel created an echo chamber, so any shouts for help that might be coming from the guards atop the train would reach neither the men inside nor the saboteurs on the ground.
The train, when it emerged from the tunnel was empty on top.
Dengler let out a victory yell that would have done his Saxon ancestors proud and proceeded to light the reeking fuel already placed on the tracks. They could almost hear the frightened cursing of the engineer as he maneuvered four tons of steel into an emergency stop. Dengler shot him before he could draw a breath of relief at his narrow escape.
“Was that really necessary?” asked Adolf, staring at the blank face that moments ago had been a skilled engineer. “For all we knew, he hated his job! He might have joined us if we’d asked!”
Adolf caught several angry glares as his comrades hurried to their assigned box cars. “We don’t have time to do personality profiles,” said Dengler. “And you’d better get used to that fact.”
Angry, but not sure at who, Adolf went to his car and helped open the door. They were greeted by the stares of several dozen people, crammed into a space not even designed for humans. Some looked terrified by this latest development. Others seemed beyond fear; beyond any feeling at all. A few, the youngest, thought Adolf, seemed to recognize the newcomers as possibly here to help.
While Adolf had imagined himself heroically guiding grateful prisoners from the train and into a new and better life, the reality consisted of hustling everyone roughly off the train and into the forest. He occasionally called out reassuring greetings and explanations, but the fact was, only a lifetime of ingrained obedience on the part of most of the prisoners allowed the mission to succeed.
Once the last victim was off the train, Adolf left Lena and Schuller to explain the situation to the refugees and joined the others in stripping the area of anything useful.
Maps, codebooks, weapons and heavily damaged radio equipment lay in a growing pile on the ground. “Adolf!” called Dengler. “Go help Werner’s group with the uniforms.”
Adolf hurried into the tunnel, now dimly lit with flashlights and torches. There, five of his teammates were busy stripping blood-soaked uniforms from the mangled forms of guards. Adolf swallowed hard as he stared at what had sounded like a comical bowling game just hours before.
“These won’t be much use to us,” said Emilie, fighting with the top half of a corpse for his jacket.
“There’re ways to get the blood out,” said an older woman.
“I wasn’t thinking of the blood. Look, these are intestines wrapped up in here. Hey Adolf! Whatcha waiting for? I’ve got a lovely one for you…”
Adolf ran into the woods and threw up.
Back at base camp, no one said anything to Adolf about his unmanly behavior. Most were too busy being ecstatic. The raid had been a complete success without a single casualty—at least among the rebels--and the loot they brought home was enormously valuable.
The people they had rescued turned out to be a mixed lot. Some had useful skills and a strong desire to join the underground. Others remained in shock. A few seemed angry to have missed their appointment with the furnaces.
Whatever was to become of them, Adolf would never know. Before dawn the next day, Dengler ordered the base scrubbed clean, and broke everyone into small groups, with various covers and orders to disperse or regroup later. Adolf barely had time to finish his letter to Ilsa and give it to Wolf before they headed off in opposite directions.
“I’m so glad you were assigned to our group,” Lena told Adolf as the crumbling factory town fell away behind them. Adolf, Lena, Schuller and a pock faced boy who had no tongue were on their way to France. Dressed in the rags of what had once been farmer’s clothes, they carried papers that identified them as members of one family, ‘rotated’ off their land, and looking for work in the nearest city.
“It wasn’t much of a choice,” said Adolf. “I don’t have the skills for any of the other missions. This way, I can at least make contact with another museum group.”
He wondered if he would ever see Frederic again. Their brief encounter of just days before was already starting to feel like part of a dream. Perhaps he would meet more of his old friends in the underground. Or perhaps, he shuddered at the thought, he would meet them on the other side of a drawn weapon. He had learned of many such cases from the people he now met and worked with.
They were stopped and searched several times that first day, but their papers passed inspection and they had nothing worth stealing. They stopped for the night at a roadside camp, filled with other dispossessed people on the move.
They ate their meager rations in silence, and then spread their blankets. Adolf offered to stand first watch, expecting the others to sleep. Instead, Lena brought him a book and, to Adolf’s amazement, lit their tiny kerosene lantern. “Won’t you read to us please, Adolf?” she said. Schuller and the boy nodded eagerly.
Adolf glanced at the strangers gathered nearby. “Are you crazy?” he whispered.
“It’s only a book of children’s tales,” said Lena. “No one here will recognize them--except for those whom we might want to meet.”
Adolf considered her words. “Why not?” he muttered. Opening the crumbling, weather stained book, he found a story he remembered. “The Wise Men of Chelm,” he began.
When they left the next morning, their group had grown to twelve.
CHAPTER 13
The first bites of winter were mild here in the south of France. Adolf sat in a small outdoor café, where it was almost possible to forget the horrors happening worldwide.
Polio and smallpox were killing millions. A weakening in the immune system—particularly among Aryans—was making it harder for people to fight lesser diseases as well. An earthquake had leveled most of Denmark, and the ocean was reclaiming what was left. A food riot in the Ukraine had been settled by massacring thirty thousand people. Heresy was once again a capital crime, and with all the cults springing up these days, the officers of the Aryan Church were very busy.
None of this was in the newspaper spread on the table before him. Adolf had learned what the Party didn’t print from people he met in this café. The old couple running it—both café and underground cell—boasted that this place had been a resistance headquarters of one kind or another since the 1780s. Adolf wondered if something particular had happened at that time in France. If so, nothing of it been mentioned in his history books at school.
The best news however, was for Adolf’s eyes only. Ilsa’s latest letter lay hidden under the newspaper. It had arrived marked “postage due” and the young messenger who brought it actually held out her hand as if waiting for payment. Fortunately, Adolf was able to buy her off with a piece of bread and a magic trick he’d learned from his Uncle Gustav. He pulled out the letter and read it again.
Dear Adolf,
Life continues to be interesting. I recently had the rare privilege of attending a discussion panel with several Torah scholars. I’m not sure which part was rarer: serious Jewish studies in a world in which all Jews are currently dead, or the fact that a woman was allowed to participate in a discussion of a religion which never allowed women to participate. How’s that for a riddle? Give me your thoughts in your next letter.
As to your question about how a revolution intended to help the masses can keep them safe in the meantime? Especially if they’re foolish enough to provide us with aid and comfort? That one is hard for me as well. Try suggesting they follow a kosher diet. It’s true that starving people don’t usually take well to dietary suggestions unless there’s also food attached. (And believe me, I know. Feeding people has become a priority for me, lately.)
However, current events are taking an interesting turn. Trichinosis is on the rise, and most shellfish is highly toxic because of the pollution in the oceans. Coincidence? Yet another interesting subject f
or discussion.
In the meantime, know that I think of you always, Adolf, and hope to hear from you soon.
Until we meet in a better world—here on earth—I remain,
Your Ilsa
As usual, the letter contained nothing that could reveal her location, or compromise her mission.
But Adolf didn’t need Ilsa to tell him about her activities. His wife was becoming a legend. She had been reported everywhere from Iceland to Egypt, doing everything from preaching Judaism to blowing up military outposts. The latest intelligence had her back in Germany, collecting supplies for the underground—by raiding Wermacht supply depots. Based on the reference in her letter to feeding people, that last rumor was likely true. It was certainly Ilsa’s style.
Adolf too, had traveled extensively. Since his flight from Berlin, he had seen a great deal of Germany, Holland, Belgium, and France. And while he had been to all of those countries before, what he saw and experienced now was very different from what the privileged young heir had seen. For all he had thought he knew about the poverty and injustice of the empire, Adolf had been amazed at how it actually looked, and smelled, up close.
He turned back to his newspaper, marveling again at the headline that reported the death of Rupert Finster. Someone had managed to rig an explosive in his bedside radio. It had gone off two nights ago at ten o’clock; right at the start of Mystery Theater.
“More coffee, Herr Schmidt?” the young waitress asked.
“Yes, please.” Adolf took a thoughtful sip, then cursed as once again he tasted hair from his mustache. This new dye was making it fall out.
Scooping out the hair and sipping more carefully, Adolf hoped his contact would arrive soon. There would be the usual exchange of codes taken from Proverbs or Psalms, then he or she would escort Adolf to yet another meeting or cell or safe house. After seven months, Adolf was getting sick of it. He had yet to accomplish anything of real importance.
From the Ashes Page 13
