Friends & Enemies (Promise for Tomorrow Book 1)

by Terri Wangard

  Dieter anticipated his need and held the wire cutter ready. “The chickens will like their new coop, don’t you think?”

  Paul chuckled. “Actually, no. I think they’d rather run free than be penned up. They don’t understand it’s for their own safety.”

  “A fox might get them, or a loose dog. Not Fritzie though. He wouldn’t steal a chicken.”

  “No, he’d rather steal our tools.” Paul pointed to the little dog sinking his sharp teeth into the hammer grip.

  Dieter jumped up. “No, Fritz, no. That’s not a stick to chase.”

  He ran to the dog, but Fritz dropped the hammer with excited barking, eager to play. Soon the two rolled on the ground, Fritz’s tail swishing madly, Dieter’s laughter rising.

  His laughter was music in Paul’s ears. When he’d arrived a week ago, Dieter had been a silent, traumatized boy. For some reason, he’d shadowed Paul whenever possible. Then he started talking voluntarily. And laughing. No matter what he might do to assist on the Ziemer farm, helping Dieter heal would be Paul’s crowning achievement. Hopefully, his eminent departure wouldn’t cause the young boy to regress.

  He stood and stretched his back. His gaze swept across the village to the distant hills. What beautiful country this was. Bickenbach could be a town in Wisconsin’s farmland. No wonder so many Germans had settled in his home state.

  “Stop that. Stop pecking, you stupid chicken.”

  Paul turned. Gretchen hurried toward him, armed with falconer’s gloves as she wrestled with the chicken she held. “Looks like you’re ready for some serious birding.”

  She dumped the chicken into the coop. The sparks in her eyes could kindle a fire. “I’d gladly wring its scrawny neck and fry it for supper if the eggs weren’t so important.” The gloves fell to the ground as she brushed her hair off her face. She shook a fist at the chicken. “Miserable, hateful thing.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. You kind of remind me of that chicken.” Paul laughed as Gretchen sputtered and swelled with fury.

  He glanced around. Dieter and Fritz had drifted out of earshot. “It took a while, but I finally pinned down a memory of a feisty bantamweight standing up to the big bully at the Eighteenth Street School’s open house.” He smiled as the memory grew. “And then you used your hair to mop up your friend’s spilled soda before it reached the teacher’s lace thing.”

  Gretchen doubled over in a belly laugh. “Of all the things you could remember, why that?” Her words came out in gasps. “There was nothing else to wipe up the spill with, and that lace thing was a doily the teacher had crocheted.”

  “Do you know my mother teaches at Eighteenth Street? She’d come home with tales about a German girl who talked back to bullies. In German. Mom’s not fluent in German, at least not in your version. She often wondered if a bar of soap was needed.”

  Gretchen drew back, a hand pressed to her chest. “To wash out my mouth? Never.”

  Konrad joined them. He fiddled with a gardening basket in an uncharacteristic nervous gesture. “The invasion’s underway.”

  All hilarity was forgotten. Paul stared at Konrad. So much depended on the Allies gaining a foothold on the continent. Winning the war depended on it. His own successful escape depended on the front line coming closer. Lots of guys made it back to England by hiking through the Pyrenees Mountains to Spain, but that seemed so hazardous. Once Allies established themselves in France, a direct route to England would be possible. “What’s happening?”

  “According to Berlin,” Konrad slid his gaze to his sister and back to Paul, raising his brows, “the Wehrmacht is pushing the Allies back into the sea.”

  Paul understood. Propaganda. And Konrad probably knew more but wasn’t saying so in front of Gretchen. “I won’t believe that. According to rumors flying around my base, England was about to sink under the weight of all the men and materiel arriving from the States. That big an army can’t be denied.” He heaved a sigh. “Finally. I knew it had to happen soon.”

  “How did you know that?” Gretchen’s eyes narrowed.

  “Now is the time of year for armies to go forth. The Bible says so.”

  “Does it really?” She leaned forward with her arms akimbo, the image of a prosecutor conducting an interrogation.

  “Absolutely. Second Samuel eleven, I believe it is. ‘But David stayed in Jerusalem and dallied with Bathsheba.’” Paul nodded once. “Or something like that.”

  “Uh-huh. Sure. Whatever you say.” Gretchen picked up the falconer gloves and headed for the barn.

  Konrad watched until she disappeared before turning to Paul. “According to the BBC, the landing took place in Normandy, a lot further west than where the Wehrmacht expected them to land. Our army is concentrated in the area around Calais since that has a much shorter distance across the English Channel. The Allies pulled off a bit of subterfuge, but it still hasn’t been easy going. They are not, however, being thrown back into the sea.”

  How would the landing further west affect the war effort, and him personally? More territory to cover to reach the Third Reich could mean a longer time frame. It could also mean he would take longer to get back to England.

  He was safe for the moment, but that could change quickly. If he was discovered here, that spelled disaster for Heidi, Konrad, and everyone else on the farm. He paused in gathering up his tools. “Isn’t listening to foreign broadcasts against the law?”

  “Indeed it is.” Konrad smiled, but no humor lurked in his eyes. “Listening to enemy broadcasts is punishable with prison sentences. Sharing what we’ve heard undermines morale and spreads defeatism, which warrants the death sentence.” He glanced around. “My wife knows I’ve occasionally paused while spinning the radio dial, but doesn’t know I regularly monitor London radio. No one else knows.” He nodded toward the barn and chuckled. “Especially my dear little sister. Gretchen means well, but she can’t keep a secret.”

  Paul smiled as he headed for the tool shed, but the back of his neck prickled. Gretchen knew who he really was.

  Chapter Fourty-Five

  Bickenbach, Germany

  Thursday, June 8, 1944

  The new bedrooms awaited their paint job. Paul looked over the assortment of colors Konrad had scrounged up: dark blue, pale gray, red, and a depressing shade of drab yellow. “Some white would be nice.”

  Konrad sorted through brushes that had seen better days. “Yeah, white would be good, but this will have to do.” He sized up the first room and studied the cans. “We should have enough paint, but not enough of a single color. We’ll have to combine them, so the question is, which colors do we mix?”

  “We have two choices I think could work. One is to mix the blue with the gray to get a paler blue, although it will be a dull shade. That could be used for the boys’ room. For the girls we can mix red into that yellow and end up with a peach color. The other option would be mixing the blue and the yellow, but that would give you a seasick green. And red can be added to the gray for a dirty pink.”

  “Dull blue and peach, or seasick green and dirty pink.” Konrad snorted. “What a choice. Maybe we should ask the ladies. They can’t complain if they pick the wrong combinations.”

  “I think we’re being disparaged.” Karla entered the room with Lieselotte behind her. “I thought you’d already have one of the rooms half painted. What’s the problem?”

  Konrad stooped to open the cans. With a glance back at Paul, he said, “Care to enlighten them on the choices?”

  Paul repeated the options and cocked his head at Konrad’s wife. “And your selection would be?”

  “I have an idea.” Lieselotte clapped her hands. “Isn’t this the girls’ room? The one with the light switch? Why don’t you paint it entirely in pink, and then paint three walls of the boys’ room in the yellow, since you have the most of that, and do this wall,” she indicated the southern wall, “in blue. The colors would be complementary.”

  Paul turned to Konrad. “The lady has a plan.”

&nb
sp; Konrad laughed at her smug expression as he escorted her and his cousin from the room. “Maybe we should have you do the painting as well.”

  “Quite unnecessary, my love. We need to make you men feel useful.” She jumped aside when he tried to swat her. “We’ll keep the children away. I imagine they would love to help you.”

  “Now there’s a horrifying thought.” Karla headed for the hallway. “Paint would be everywhere except on the walls.”

  Paul stirred the red paint into the gray, using a tree branch with the bark carved off, and the men set to work. From a ladder, Paul painted down from the ceiling while Konrad started from floor at the other end of the room.

  Fritz’s happy barking drew Paul’s eyes to the window. Heidi and Gretchen supervised a group of children playing a game. When a little girl tumbled, Fritz pounced on her, licking her face and making her laugh instead of cry. He smiled. He couldn’t consider Fritz to be his dog anymore. He was the children’s dog.

  Konrad repositioned the burlap he’d found in the barn for a drop cloth. “What do you think of the Luftwaffe?”

  “I don’t like them. They keep trying to shoot us down.”

  Laughter greeted his flippant remark. Paul smiled. Heidi’s brother could laugh with an enemy about the seriousness of war.

  Konrad’s tone sounded aggrieved. “They are not going to be able to keep that up. Too many pilots have been lost. We can replace the planes, but not the pilots, and their absence hinders the rest of the military.” He heaved a sigh as he stood and stretched his back. “The soldiers manning an antiaircraft gun in Hagen tell a joke. ‘If you see a green plane, it’s British. If it’s silver, it’s American. And if you cannot see it, it’s German.’” Now his sigh was pure frustration. “And to think, Herr Meier promised no enemy planes over the Reich.”

  “Who is Herr Meier?”

  “Our illustrious Luftwaffe chief, Herman Goering. He said if an enemy plane ever flew into our air space, we could call him Meier.” Konrad waved his paintbrush. “The Brits promptly came to visit and made him a liar.” He paused while making even strokes in the corner before continuing. “Meier is one of the most common names in Germany. Some pundits suggested that since many Jews are named Meier, Goering practically swore an oath that enemy planes would not be allowed over Germany, because he would not want to be linked with what the Nazis call sub-humans.”

  Paul’s brush strokes slowed. “One of the navigators at my base came from Germany. His family fled several years ago because of Jewish ancestry.” He watched Konrad closely, trying to gauge his reaction. “What happened to the Jews in Germany who couldn’t emigrate?”

  “I have no idea.” Konrad looked up, and his face held no guile. His puzzlement was genuine. “They were rounded up and sent east. Supposedly a Jewish state was being formed. But where in the east? I was in Poland at the beginning of the war. Only Poland’s Jews were there, and they were rounded up too. They couldn’t have been sent further east. The Russians wouldn’t allow that. So where are they? A lot were sent to concentration camps, but the little children? There are rumors, but they’re too vile to be believed.”

  “What are these concentration camps? I’ve heard them mentioned before.”

  Konrad glanced around as though expecting eavesdroppers. “Like prisons, but worse. Political opponents are sent there. They’re forced to work at hard, dirty jobs. A lot of them die. If they are released, they’re shadows of their former selves.”

  Paul swirled his brush in the paint can. How could a civilized country behave like this? Heidi and Konrad knew they’d end up in a concentration camp, and probably executed, if he was discovered. Would he have their courage if he were in their situation? The idea seemed ludicrous. The United States would never descend to such depths.

  Setting aside his brush, he went to the door and looked down the stairs. Satisfied no one lurked within hearing, he asked in a low tone, “What are the chances I’ll be discovered and you arrested?”

  Konrad eyed him for a long moment. “Less than fifty percent, I’d say. Gretchen recognizing you was unfortunate, but Karla is my greater concern.” Now he glanced to the door. “She’s changed. Harder, less inclined to laugh.”

  They painted in silence for several minutes before Konrad paused. “I might as well tell you we’re likely under some suspicion even without your presence. Supposedly, we’re here because I was wounded and can’t do an adequate job at the factory. However, I suspect the fact we attended the Confessing Church in Hagen largely contributed to Lieselotte and me being sent here, away from our friends at church. And the fact that my family spent a few years in America arouses suspicion.”

  “Your being sent here turned out to be a blessing, for me and for the children. You’re doing a valuable work here, Konrad. Children are Germany’s most precious commodity. They’re Germany’s future. And you can influence that future through them. Teach them right from wrong. Teach them to honor and fear God.”

  “That’s something our pastor in Hagen emphasizes, fear God and not man. The Gestapo may kill our bodies, but they cannot kill our souls.” Konrad chuckled. “But I still haven’t gotten to the point where I can be thankful for my injuries.”

  “Uh oh.” Paul jumped away from the window. “Speak of the Gestapo and look who shows up.”

  Konrad had been painting in the opposite corner, but before Paul could look around, he was beside him. He thrust his brush into Paul’s hand.

  “Uh oh is right. That must be Rudy, who thinks Heidi needs a man, namely him.” He headed for the door, instructing Paul over his shoulder. “I’ll send Heidi in for a turn at painting. Should he follow her inside, go immediately downstairs and hide in my bedroom, last door on that end of the hall.” He waved a hand toward the back of the house and disappeared.

  No sooner did Konrad stride outside, a toddler in his arms, than footsteps tapped up the stairs. Dropping the brushes to his paint trough, Paul spun around. The third floor held no hiding place. Gretchen burst through the door, and he dragged a hand across his face.

  “I come in for a drink and Konrad tells me to come up and paint. What’s going on?” She joined him at the window and answered her own question. “Rudy. This is not good.”

  “Where are the other women?”

  “Frau Ziemer and Karla are outside and Lieselotte’s in the kitchen. Why?”

  Paul didn’t answer. No one was on the second floor to see him if he should need to hide. Good. He watched the unfolding drama. Konrad spoke to Heidi, transferring the child to her. Heidi automatically accepted the child, but even from this distance, Paul recognized her confusion as she turned. Rudy spoke, but she didn’t break stride as she said something over her shoulder.

  Paul stiffened. Rudy was following her. His last glimpse before spinning away revealed Konrad grabbing Dieter and another boy and pointing them to the house. Young chaperones.

  “Konrad’s plan backfired. That guy’s coming inside.” He jogged to the door. “Grab a brush and continue painting over there. I’ve got to disappear.”

  He didn’t wait to see Gretchen’s response. Taking the stairs two at a time, he hurried down the hallway. They’d made a mistake in not familiarizing him with the second floor. Last door on the end, back side. Yep, this must be Kurt and Lieselotte’s room. But where to hide? Under the bed? He slid under in a move worthy of a baseball player stealing home.

  Steps sounded on the stairs, light steps in a hurry. Heidi wanted to get away from Rudy, but she was trapped in the house now with Rudy close on her heels.

  A deep voice sounded irritated. “You boys go back outside.”

  “Uncle Konrad said we can see how our new room looks.”

  Good boy, Dieter. You’re not going to let that Gestapo goon push you around.

  Another deep growl of irritation drifted down from upstairs. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m holding a paint brush and applying paint to the wall. Consequently, I’m painting. Or did you mean in general? I live here.
” Gretchen’s tone suggested he was stupid. He was, but rubbing it in might not be wise.

  “I will talk to Heidi alone.”

  If the goon expected instant compliance, he had to be disappointed. Gretchen ignored him to talk to Heidi. “If you want to continue over there, we’ll meet in the middle. We ought to be able to finish two walls before Konrad and Lieselotte take their turn, don’t you think?”

  The boys began chattering, drowning out the adult voices. Lieselotte entered the bedroom, and Paul jerked further back under the bed. He hadn’t even heard her footsteps.

  “I just changed you, Sabine. You can’t possibly need another change already. I think Konrad and Heidi are playing pass the baby.” She lowered the tot to the floor as Paul stifled a sneeze.

  Blue eyes peered at him through the tassels lining the edge of the bedspread. “Chau ste.”

  With a bit of imagination, Sabine may have announced, “Paul’s here.” He tried to shoo her away, but she didn’t take the hint. She crawled under the bed to join him.

  “Oh, Sabine, don’t go under the bed. It must be dusty under there.” Lieselotte grabbed a small foot, and leaned down for a look. “Horst?”

  He put a finger to his lips.

  “Looking for something?” That irritating deep voice again.

  Lieselotte’s nostrils flared. Good. She didn’t like him either.

  Paul shook his head and fluttered his hand. Don’t give me away.

  Lieselotte slid Sabine out by her foot, talking to the toddler as she did. “If you want to explore under the bed, I’ll give you a duster and you can do some good while you’re there.” A pause. “You are not welcome in my bedroom.”

  Paul didn’t move. He didn’t breathe. Two shiny black shoes stood just inside the doorway. The goon must buff them every day. Finally, he stepped back and down the hall.

  Lieselotte took his place in the doorway. Voices drifted up from the kitchen, followed by a door closing. She hurried to the window. “He’s outside. You can come out now, Horst.”