A View Across the Rooftops: An epic, heart-wrenching and gripping World War Two historical novel

by Suzanne Kelman

  Finally, he was able to move his feet and slowly make his way out to the street. As he stepped into the chilly day, the cold gave him no comfort. He turned to look back at Ingrid. He should go back, say something more. But before he could act, he noticed she had moved over to the table of the German soldiers and started to flirt openly.

  Held walked home, preoccupied as a sickening concern took hold of him. There was so much evil around. Could it be coming to darken his own front door? He thought about Ingrid, the frightened child who had visited him not long after she had lost her mother. Wearing a simple checkered blue dress and a brown cardigan with a tiny hole in the elbow, she’d clung to her doll in his kitchen, looking for a hero. But he had been ill-equipped to take care of a young girl, too sad, still grieving Sarah’s death. He had been more than happy to have other relatives step in and take her away. The hollow pain of his own sorrow was too great to bear when reflected through the grief in the eyes of a child. He remembered holding her small hand in his before she boarded a train, taking her away to another family member. As she waved goodbye through the window, he’d wondered who would repair the hole in her cardigan now.

  What if his complete inability to care for her had let her down? Was it his fault there was such a huge hole inside her that she could only fill it with the evil that now waited for them around every corner? Was this how it started, the disillusionment of one’s soul, an easy target for evil that came disguised as elitist acceptence?

  As he turned into his street, his pace quickened. He needed to get home, needed to breathe, needed to feel safe again.

  He entered the house, took off his coat, and walked straight into the kitchen. Ignoring Kat’s plaintive meows, he opened the large wooden shutters. Icy air swirled in and filled the whole room. He stood with his eyes closed, desperately wanting relief. As the chill finally found its way through the thick fabric of his trousers, it took hold of his bones and calmed them, and he started to think clearly.

  He would talk again to Ingrid. She would listen. After all, he was her uncle. He would explain about the danger in the simplest of terms. He would make her see. He had to make her see. Poor Ingrid with her simple, gullible ways. All she really wanted was to be loved. No wonder the striking officers with their slick boots and glossy propaganda had lured her. She was easy prey for evil.

  A blast of frigid air moved through the kitchen, lifting the corners of a pile of student papers stacked on his table. It ruffled his hair, causing him to shiver. Then Mrs. Epstein’s music began. Its familiar presence pacifying him like a child hearing a favored lullaby. He opened his eyes, and tears brimmed for the beauty of the music that filled his kitchen and gave him hope. It was a tune she’d been practicing for weeks, he didn’t know it, but the notes were soothing and lyrical, rocking and comforting him. As he absorbed the music, a wave of reassurance flowed over him. It would be all right; it had to be.

  All at once, sharp claws extended and retracted through the thick woolen fabric of his trousers, and he couldn’t help but smile at the expectant, purring gray head. He reached down to pick up Kat.

  “I guess you are hungry, my friend.”

  Slowly, he moved about the kitchen as the music turned his soul from night to day, hopelessness to quiet strength. He placed food in Kat’s bowl then made himself a cup of tea. By the time Mrs. Epstein had moved on to Beethoven, he had settled in his chair by the window as the gentle strains surrounded him once more. He closed his eyes again, his heart and senses smoothed to an even keel.

  Chapter 5

  Professor Held observed his diminished classroom. So many empty desks. How was it that so many people were now unacceptable to the Nazis? He thought of some of the students who were now gone, good students, quiet, pensive souls who had only wanted to learn. What was so threatening to the Third Reich about someone wanting to understand the fundamentals of calculus? What terrible threat could a young person educated in adding and subtracting be to the world?

  He thought of Michael Blum. Opening his desk drawer, he pulled out Michael’s assignment, carefully smoothed it out and puzzled over the poem he’d transcribed, which was about a powerful animal being kept behind bars. In that instant, something in Rilke’s words struck a chord in him—after many years of feeling trapped in his own emotional cage, he found himself understanding the plight of this panther Rilke had written about.

  He placed the paper back in the spot where the book had been and closed the drawer. He wasn’t sure why he had kept it. Perhaps some vague hope of satisfaction that would arise from giving it back to the student when this was all over, when everything was back to normal and the assignment could be finished. Somehow that appealed to him, being able to make things right in his own world. He closed the drawer and looked out once again at the empty desks. Taking off his glasses, he rubbed his eyes, then carefully replaced the glasses, and cleared his throat.

  “Class dismissed.”

  The classroom emptied, and the room fell silent. There was a gentle knocking at his door, and he thought that maybe one of his students had forgotten a math book or pencil, but was surprised instead to see Hannah Pender hovering in the doorway. He beckoned her to enter.

  She strode into the room, and once again he was struck by her beauty, her dark hair had recently been cut into a new shorter style and it emphasized the loveliness of her blue eyes. As she entered, he was quite captivated by their color and realized he had not looked into a woman’s eyes in a very long time. He stood respectfully to greet her and there was that scent again. Definitely lilacs.

  “Professor.”

  “Mrs. Pender.” He noted his voice sounded strange, almost high-pitched and shrill. He coughed to clear it and disguise his discomfort.

  She hesitated for a few seconds, as she weighed her words before she spoke.

  “I believe you have a wireless.”

  Held drew himself up to his full height before answering. “Yes, why?”

  Hannah shifted her weight her eyes cast downwards. “We have been ordered to collect all wirelesses.”

  For a second Held was speechless. “Ordered?”

  “By the Third Reich.”

  Held continued to stare. “Why do they need my wireless?”

  Nervously Hannah smoothed her skirt with her hands. There was an intense moment between them as their eyes met and he tried to process the information and the implications of giving up something so precious to him. He noted she looked—or perhaps was pretending to look—just as sad to be asking.

  Hannah continued, “I’m sorry.”

  Slowly, he walked to the back of the classroom. His hands shook as he found the appropriate key, not only with what she was asking of him but also with the encounter; he reminded himself she was a married woman.

  Turning the key in the lock, sadness struck him. Opening this one door had always been preceded by joyous expectancy until now. He pulled it open and lifted out the wireless. He could smell its polished wood as he carried it to Hannah and placed it in her expectant arms.

  As he handed it over their hands grazed each other momentarily and he tried not to think about it as she started to apologize again. “I know how much your wireless means to you.”

  He shook his head, unable to speak. Unwilling to connect with the pain of losing his wireless, and thrown off balance by the softness of her skin brushing his and how aware he seemed of her.

  He turned quickly, walking to his desk, and sitting down, he pretended to be busy marking papers.

  Hannah followed him and appeared to want to say more but seemed lost for words. She hovered above him nervously, that scent of spring flowers permeating his whole space. He glanced up and she gave him a reassuring smile. It was as if she wanted to say something more, but for whatever reason didn’t seem to have the courage. He looked back down and tried to focus all of his attention on his desk as she lingered a little longer than was necessary before finally leaving, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

  As Held walked home th
at evening, he bought a bottle of wine with his groceries as he dwelled on his day. The loss was acute. He knew it was just a wireless, a thing, an object, but it was what it represented to him. Hadn’t the Nazis already taken so much? Their town, their way of life, their hope. Why was one more thing so important? They were already stripped and surrendered. What was the point of taking even more? And what would they do with his wireless? The sting of resentment coursed through him as he imagined it taking pride of place in some Nazi’s home or, worse, getting dusty on some German requisition shelf. What harm could come to Germany from a mathematics professor with a wireless tuned to a classical music station?

  As he rounded the bend of his road, a German soldier approached and asked for his papers. For a second, he wondered if the officer had read his mind, sensing the seething anger he felt for that uniform right then. But the tired-looking soldier just inspected his papers as he waited, sickened by this day. He wanted to be home. After passing inspection, he walked to his door and thought of the bottle of red wine he carried in the cloth bag by his side. Not a regular wine drinker, he had decided he needed a glass or two this evening.

  He was fumbling for the keys at his door when he heard a piercing scream coming from close by. Turning quickly on his heels, he could see nothing. Then, bursting through the hedge came his neighbor, Mrs. Epstein, clutching a pile of papers to her chest. The look of panic in her eyes was terrifying. Running straight up his steps toward him, she threw the whole weight of her body at him, grappling for his arms with her free hand. Held was frozen in terror. With her great fear of the outdoors, he had never seen her outside in the street before and knew that the situation had to be desperate in order for her to leave the safety of her home.

  Then, in a frenzied attack, she snatched the lapel of his coat, jerking him so aggressively that he stumbled down his two steps as she pulled her face close to his. “Help me, please,” she screamed. “Please help me!”

  Before Held could even respond, someone was upon her. It happened so fast that over the many times he would recall the event, it would still have the turbulent confusion of a frantic nightmare; a fractured vision of jarring and maniacal memory. An arm around her neck, a gray-sleeved arm, wearing a black leather glove. Her petrified eyes imploring him like desperate prey caught by a bloodthirsty predator. The screaming, shrill and constant, desperately piercing his world over and over again.

  And finally, her words high and frantic, the words that would remain with him forever. “No, let me go, please, please let me go.”

  Then with a final violent jerk of his collar, her white fingers, which had locked on and refused to let go, were aggressively torn from him. There was a stunned look of desperate futility on her face as she was dragged back through the bushes. His last image was a blur of a blue wool skirt and one black shoe left turned on its side on his path. And then, from just behind his shrubbery, the crack of a bullet, followed by deafening silence. And with that one sharp sound, the whole of Held’s world fractured open.

  He was unaware of the bag slipping from his hand, didn’t hear the bottle smash or see the wine pour forth onto his step. He realized afterward that he must have closed his eyes because when he opened them again, the sky was filled with fluttering white paper. Sheet music raining down all around him. He remembered thinking how mesmerizing it was, like white rose petals stirred up by a mighty wind. Watching stupefied, incomprehensible horror was paused to anchor him to beauty. A hairbreadth of time to allow a chink of exquisiteness to drift through the cracks of weighty realization and the acrid smell of cordite that lingered heavy on the air.

  Through the flurry of papers, he saw German soldiers coming toward him. In a moment of blind panic, he thought he would be next.

  He couldn’t move, his legs locked in cement. He willed them to move, looked down at them. His shoes were covered in red liquid. Was it wine or blood?

  He looked up at the officer who was speaking but Held couldn’t hear the words. The soldier repeated himself, and slowly sound filtered through.

  “You are the professor?”

  Without even being aware of doing it, he nodded. Held didn’t have control of his own body; someone else appeared to be working it for him. He was just the observer watching from a safe place.

  The soldier continued. “Held?”

  Again, he nodded. Words were out of the question. Held caught sight of something on his shirtsleeve. Tiny red specks along the cuff where the arm of his coat had ridden up. He took a moment to process; it was blood.

  The officer lit a cigarette and offered one to Held. He managed to shake his head.

  The soldier continued in a tone the same as if they were discussing the weather. “Yes, Ingrid described you. You’re her uncle, yes? We had been given a tip-off about this particular Jewess already, but I thank you anyway for your confirmation that she was here.”

  Held registered his niece’s name. It sounded foreign and ugly coming from the mouth of this animal, a deplorable creature who had just casually taken the life of another human being a few feet away. A human being the enemy knew nothing of, blind to everything except that to them she was vermin. What confirmation was this man talking about?

  Held became light-headed from holding his breath. The words of the soldier continued to reverberate as if he were yelling into a deep well and Held was imprisoned at the bottom. From the shattered shards that were his thoughts, one rose to the top, something so fearful and unimaginable that he felt he might throw up. A terrible realization, piercing his heart and soul with such acute precision the pain was even worse than what he had just witnessed. The officer was talking about Held’s conversation with Ingrid.

  The soldier continued, oblivious to the fact Held was about to pass out. “Yes. The sneaky Jews are the hardest to find. But we will find them thanks to the good Dutch, like Ingrid. Like yourself.”

  The German soldier picked up the wet cloth bag, now just a bag of broken glass, and handed it to Held.

  His hand shook violently as he put the key into the lock and entered. Inside the house, he closed the door on the horror, fighting again for his breath. He slumped against the doorframe and then slid to the floor. Kat climbed onto his lap, purring and meowing his welcome.

  Reaching out absentmindedly for any fragment of comfort, Held petted his friend. “Oh, Kat, what did I do?”

  Held did not remember much of what happened in the next two hours, but he did remember pouring water on his front step in an attempt to wash everything away. He stood there in the dark night, uncaring of the blackout or the curfew, pouring pails of clear, cold liquid in a steady stream. The water bounced down the concrete steps onto his path, swelling and swirling, gathering mud and debris as it turned the red into pink. As he finished the task, he heard a fluttering, like a bird trapped in his thick hedge. The moonlight illuminated crumpled sheets of music, most of it caught and wrapped around a bush in his tiny front garden.

  He took his time gathering all of them, straightening out the sheets the best he could. Then he placed them on his kitchen table. He wasn’t sure why, but somehow it felt important. A physical reminder that what had happened to Mrs. Epstein had been real. He stared at the musical notes and saw this was a lively, upbeat piece, marked to be played allegro. He instantly recognized the placement of the notes, the music she’d been practicing for weeks now. It appeared to be a piece she had written herself. He pulled the title page close to his face to be able to read the two words written at the top in Mrs. Epstein’s spidery hand. He whispered them to himself, “Mijn Amsterdam.”

  Chapter 6

  As the cold day turned to night that evening, Elke lit long red candles around the houseboat. They bounced light off the windows into the overhanging eaves, casting a rich warm shadow across the boat. She stood barefoot on the red-tiled floor that she had painted herself, her hair was swept up in a messy bun and a thick woolen shawl draped around her shoulders. Humming in front of her stove, she stirred the pot of warm food that was to
be their dinner. Elke always loved to make soup; it reminded her of her grandmother.

  She had just finished painting and she could hear Michael playing her guitar on her bed. He was composing a song and was not to be disturbed, he’d reminded her in a severe, artistic fashion. Then, to soften his declaration, he’d added that it was a love song for her.

  Elke continued to stir the wooden spoon around the blue enamel pot, listening to his gentle strumming. The soup started to erupt into tiny bubbles at the base of the pan that soon gave way to larger syrupy ones at the top. The smell of the carrots and potatoes cooking became intoxicating. Replacing the lid, she moved the pot to simmer and took time setting her tiny galley table for dinner. A vase of paper flowers she had made years before in art class anchored a Van Gogh-inspired tablecloth in vivid yellows and blues. Spoons sat arranged beside wide-brimmed purple soup bowls she had turned herself. Elke completed the arrangement by placing two oversized, mismatched wine glasses and a candle.

  Going to a shelf, she took down a cheap bottle of red wine. Since the occupation, certain foods were hard to come by, but at least wine always seemed to be available. She turned the corkscrew, removing the cork and leaving the wine to breathe on the table. It would be a surprise for Michael, a frivolous indulgence from some extra money she made doing French translation work, a sideline she pursued to help fund her university education.

  Next, she returned to the stove and wrapped the hot panhandle in a tea towel. She carried the pan to the table and filled the wide misshapen bowls with steaming orange liquid. She knew it was a little spicy, but she hoped the heat would help compensate for the lack of substance.

  Elke called to Michael. The music stopped, and he padded barefoot into the kitchen.

  “Umm.” His eyes lit up as he caught sight of the table. “What do we have here?”