A Bridge Across the Ocean

by Susan Meissner

  For the next two months Annaliese spent every weekday alone in the flat, sometimes dancing in her bare feet for hours to keep herself occupied. One morning as she stood outside the balcony of their second-floor apartment, she suddenly remembered how she and Katrine had once climbed out her second-story bedroom window and used the neighbor’s tree to get to the ground. They had snuck off to the bakery to buy sweets, even though Madame had told Louisa that Annaliese was not to have any more fattening desserts of any kind.

  Annaliese now eyed the railings, the eaves, and the position of the neighbors’ iron trellis. Before she could talk herself out of it, she was on the other side of the railing, and onto the ground, her lithe dancer’s body making it easy. She was outside without so much as having looked at the front door. For the first time in weeks she laughed. The sound of her own happiness brought tears next and she sank to her knees on the bit of grass between the building and the pathway that led to the street, missing ordinary things like sun on her face, birdsong, and a kind voice.

  That first day she just walked around the block once. The following day she walked two blocks. The third day she went to a bakery and bought the sweetest thing wartime rations would allow—a cruller with a scattering of powdered sugar on top. The bakery owner hadn’t seen her in his shop before and asked her name.

  She told him it was Katrine.

  After a month of successfully sneaking away from the flat, Annaliese began to wonder what else she could do to get away from her prison of a marriage.

  Five days before Christmas, the RAF flew six hundred fifty aircraft over Frankfurt and dropped two thousand pounds of explosives on the city. Annaliese spent the night in the apartment building’s basement along with a dozen other residents, waiting for the all-clear siren to sound. At the bakery the next day, there was talk among other customers that the damage in Frankfurt was extensive and many people had been killed. For four days, Rolf didn’t come home from work, and Annaliese found herself woozy with a strange mix of apprehension and relief that he might be dead.

  On Christmas morning, he returned bandaged and limping and angry that she had not come to see if he was all right. His offices had been flattened in the bombings and he’d suffered a broken arm, bruised ribs, and several lacerations. His driver had brought him home after four days in the hospital.

  “You told me not to leave the apartment, Rolf. So I didn’t,” she answered, unable to mask the edge of impertinence in her voice.

  Annaliese could tell he wanted to hit her then, but with his injuries, it would’ve hurt too much.

  Rolf spent the holidays recuperating at home, and there were no more escapes for Annaliese via the balcony. When they did leave the flat, it was because Rolf wanted out, and they left together. He kept in contact with his superiors in Berlin by courier and telegrams. He was a terrible patient, but he needed her in a different way while he was mending, and his broken arm and ribs kept him from striking her, which was a welcome reprieve.

  New Year’s Day dawned quiet. Annaliese lay in her bed as snow fell silently outside the window, contemplating what 1944 might hold in store. Perhaps another bomb on another day would kill Rolf. Or maybe the next bombing spree would be over Wiesbaden and they’d both be killed. Either scenario was one she would welcome. Unless . . . unless there might be a day in 1944 when she would climb down the trellis and she wouldn’t come back. Unless she just kept walking west. Out of the neighborhood, out of Wiesbaden, out of hell. She could keep walking until she got to Prüm. No, she’d keep walking until she got to St. Vith. Damn whatever patrol she’d have to get through to get into occupied Belgium. She would see Katrine or die trying. Dying on her way to see Katrine was preferable to dying slowly day by day in Rolf’s viselike grip.

  She would need money, though. Money for transportation. Money for bribes, if necessary. It would take some time to collect it without Rolf figuring it out. And she’d have to hide the money somewhere he’d never look. Her empty ballet bag, perhaps . . .

  She heard Rolf grunt in his sleep as she contemplated all of this. She rose from the bed quietly and withdrew a deutschmark from his coin purse, unzipped her deflated ballet bag, and slipped it inside.

  The months ticked by and Annaliese bided her time, pilfering pfennigs and marks and enduring Rolf’s daily abuses. And all the while, the bombs continued to fall. On Berlin, Hamburg, Leipzig, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, and elsewhere. Rolf became even more difficult to please, and he no longer began sentences with when we win the war. Work was becoming increasingly stressful as the ministry’s propaganda machine struggled to convince the German populace that the Third Reich would triumph over all its foes.

  Finally, one day in early June, Rolf came home late from work, after Annaliese had gone to bed, and went back early the next day. Something significant had happened, but when she asked him at breakfast, he wouldn’t tell her what it was. She found out a few hours later by eavesdropping on conversations on the street. Several days earlier, Allied Forces by the thousands had landed on the western coast of Normandy and were now marching across France. Thousands upon thousands of them.

  This was the distraction she needed.

  This.

  And right now.

  Today.

  Annaliese hurried home, changed into traveling clothes, and grabbed her ballet bag and identification papers. It was only nine thirty in the morning. She had ten hours of daylight ahead of her, the weather was warm, and the skies were quiet. She wasn’t afraid to beg for a ride or buy one or steal one. Somehow she would keep moving—and she wouldn’t stop until she crossed the border into Belgium. She considered for a moment leaving the front door unlocked and ajar so that when Rolf got home he could see that she had defied him outright, but in the end she left by the trellis after tossing the bag to the ground, so that when he found her gone he might think, just for a few seconds, that his angel had sprung wings and flown back to heaven.

  Twenty-three

  Had Annaliese been able to rely on public transportation to get to Prüm, the three-hundred-kilometer journey would have taken only half a day on a combination of different trains. It would have been a scenic trip with time for coffee and kuchen in the dining car. But the trains were unreliable in the summer of 1944 and some railway stations had been bombed, which meant getting anywhere required patience, flexibility, and a stroke of good luck. As Annaliese left the flat for good, she was fairly certain the train station in Wiesbaden was the second place Rolf would look for her. She had taken a map she had bought on the sly, the pilfered money, a flashlight, a flask of water, a few brotchen, and very little else. He would not see an empty wardrobe and rifled bureau drawers and think she had left him, not immediately. The first place he would check would most likely be the ballet studio she’d found when they first arrived in Wiesbaden. He might return to the flat after that to furiously await her return, thinking she’d gone out shopping or on some other fool’s errand. But after an hour or so he would begin to grow concerned: not that harm might’ve come to her, but that she’d had the audacity to leave him.

  At that point he’d head to the train station in Wiesbaden. He would ask if anyone had seen her or sold her a ticket. And there would be no one who could say that they had. Annaliese purposely avoided that train station for that reason.

  Instead she walked thirteen kilometers to the town of Eltville, avoiding main roads whenever possible. Three hours after fleeing the flat she was on a train headed north to Koblenz. It was the only train operating that day and she had no trouble boarding it when she told the ticket agent that she was the wife of a ministry official attending to important matters. She slept in the train station that night to save her precious deutschmarks, and the next morning she paid a man on his way to deliver coal to the village of Kaisersesch forty kilometers away to let her ride with him. For the next two days she made her way, in roundabout fashion, as far as she could go, making only one purchase outside transport
ation costs—a black leotard. When she was only a few kilometers from Prüm, she realized with a start that she could not set foot in the city where she’d been born and raised; she’d be too easily recognized. She could not stop to see her parents to tell them what Rolf was really like. When Rolf realized she’d left him, he’d likely head for Prüm, just as soon as his superiors let him. He might even be there now, waiting for her. She was grateful that she had never mentioned Katrine to him, and her parents had certainly long forgotten her childhood friend. She was counting on them to have forgotten about her.

  Still, the thought of perhaps not being able to see her parents filled her with a strange sadness, and she found herself wishing she cared more that she might get shot crossing the border than that she’d never see them again. By late afternoon she had walked as far as the outskirts of Winterspelt, sneaking into a farmer’s barn to grab a few hours’ sleep. When darkness fell, she made her way off the main road by a couple kilometers using the map and flashlight. Her hope was that the Gestapo would only have bridge checkpoints on the roads that crossed the Our River, the natural former border between Belgium and Germany. If she could just get to the shores undetected and far from any bridges, she would swim across.

  The evening was fair and warm and no Allied planes flew overhead. She found the river by moonlight and walked for a little while on its shore to find the narrowest stretch across. When she located a spot that appeared to be only a kilometer wide, she stripped off her clothes and put on the black leotard. Then she stuffed her clothes in the ballet bag and filled it with rocks so that it would sink and never resurface. For a second she considered putting her identification papers inside as well so that she could become a nameless no one when she stepped onto the Belgian shore, but there was no way she could continue to travel without them. And if she was to keep moving and stay ahead of Rolf, she needed her papers. She tucked them deep inside a leather billfold she’d brought along, and slipped the package inside the leotard to rest against her abdomen.

  Annaliese knelt in the mud and asked God to be merciful and forgiving. Then she stepped in.

  Having danced every day in the apartment for nearly a year gave her stamina that surprised her. The water was bracing but also invigorating, and the more she put one arm in front of the other, the more she tasted freedom. As she neared the shore of the other side, about twenty-five minutes later, she slowed her pace to make sure there was no one watching her swim across. The Belgian side was covered in trees and lined with a bank too muddy and steep to cross without the light of the sun to guide her. She swam upriver a little ways, though by this time she was growing weary, until she found a place she could climb out. Once on shore, she rested only until her breathing was normal, and then she was on her feet, shivering and muddy. She kept near the river, always in earshot of it as she moved north and west. She knew if she could find the town of Auel on the river, she would also find Luxemburger Strasse, a paved road that led to St. Vith. If she stayed to the shadows and hid from any approaching headlights, she could make it to Katrine’s house in under three hours.

  Though the day had been warm, the night air was damp and cool and her wet leotard clung to her body like a sheath made of ice. She tried to jog to increase her body heat, but her bare feet were soon cut and bleeding from stones and the times she had to conceal herself in the brush when a late-night traveler drove past. By the time she reached St. Vith, Annaliese had neared exhaustion. She made her way as stealthily as she could through the sleeping city, letting herself into Katrine’s grandparents’ back garden so that she could knock lightly on the door and rouse Katrine without anyone on the street seeing her. A light rain began to fall as she rapped her hand against the wood.

  She wanted to awaken only Katrine, but no one came in response to her gentle knocking. As the rain began to fall in earnest, she started beating harder on the door, desperate for someone to let her in, wrap her in warmth, and tell her she was safe. Annaliese had almost begun to believe that the war had chased Katrine and her grandparents away and the house was empty, when at last, through a tiny opening in the blackout curtain of the door’s window, a seam of light appeared. The lock clicked, the handle turned, and the door opened an inch and stopped.

  “Katrine! It’s me! It’s Annaliese!” she cried out.

  The door opened wider and there on the threshold was André Dumont, Katrine’s grandfather. He looked old and haggard, as though twenty years had passed since she had last seen him, and not five. “Annaliese?”

  “Please tell Katrine I’m here! Please! Tell her I’m here.”

  “How . . . Why are you here?” He looked as if he believed himself dreaming.

  She was weeping now and the rain was falling in sheets. She was so tired and so cold. “Please tell Katrine I’m here! Please.”

  André Dumont shook his head. “Katrine doesn’t live here anymore.”

  Annaliese stood still and silent for a moment as his words fell on her like blows from a hammer. Then she pitched forward and collapsed, half in his arms and half on the muddied doorstep.

  • • •

  SHE DREAMED SHE WAS ON A BOAT ON A VAST OCEAN. THE SURFACE OF THE sea was smooth like glass and there was no wind, but somehow the boat moved, slicing through the water like a knife. The sun above was brilliant and warm on her skin. She looked down at her body and saw that she wore a gauzy gown that shimmered and yet was soft to the touch.

  This is heaven, she thought, and was not afraid.

  “You are safe, rest now,” said a voice, sweet and gentle and without human form.

  The gauzy dress billowed all around her and the boat sailed on and she closed her eyes.

  Sometime later she realized that the boat had been a dream.

  The last thing Annaliese remembered was being told by André Dumont that Katrine no longer lived in St. Vith. She’d been cold and wet and weary and alone and broken. Now she lay on a feather bed and she could feel under the blanket on top of her that her torn and bloody feet had been bandaged. She struggled to open her eyes, but her lids were so heavy and the room seemed dark.

  There was movement beside her, the sound of a chair being scraped against the floor, and for a second she thought perhaps Rolf had found her and she was back in the bed at the flat in Wiesbaden.

  She had no sooner startled when a light was brought near to her and she saw that hovering over her was not Rolf, but the dearest person she’d ever known in her life.

  “Katrine?” she said, her voice raspy and unsure.

  “Hush, my sweet. All is well.” Katrine’s face was close to hers. Her friend’s hair was darker and shorter than it had been five years ago, but everything else about Katrine was the same.

  “Is this real? Am I awake?”

  Katrine smiled. “Yes. You are with me. And you are safe now.”

  Her tears of relief came in wracked sobs, and Katrine lay down next to her to soothe her as best she could. Annaliese wanted so badly to tell Katrine everything, but every tear that Rolf had forbid her to cry was now spilling out of her. She fell asleep with Katrine’s arms around her.

  When she awoke again, morning sun was filtering through blackout curtains that had been shoved aside.

  She was in a tiny A-frame bedroom with a narrow, pitched roof. She was wearing a nightgown she did not recognize. She sat up in bed and gingerly set her feet to the floor, wincing as her cuts and scrapes reminded her of the harrowing journey.

  Katrine appeared in the doorway with a breakfast tray. “You don’t have to get up, Annaliese. Just let your feet heal and your body rest.”

  Her friend set the tray down and helped her arrange the pillows so that she could sit in the bed.

  “I keep thinking I am going to wake up and be back where I was,” Annaliese murmured.

  Katrine handed her a cup of tea. “You are here with me. And you can stay as long as you want.”

  Annal
iese sipped the tea. Its warmth spread through her limbs. “Are we in St. Vith?”

  Katrine sat in the chair next to the bed. “You are in Malmédy now. I teach school here. My grandfather brought you to me in his horse cart the night you arrived. He was so scared that you had died right there on the back step!” She laughed lightly.

  “I thought I had died right there, too.” Annaliese set the cup down on the bedside table.

  Katrine’s smile ebbed a bit. She nodded toward Annaliese’s left hand. “You are married now?”

  Annaliese looked down at the wedding ring Rolf had placed on her hand. She’d meant to toss it into the ballet bag so that it could sink to the bottom of the river with everything else. “I suppose I am.” She looked up at Katrine as a sudden terrible thought fell across her. “What if Rolf comes here? What if my parents tell him about you? What if your grandfather tells him where I am?”

  “Shhh,” Katrine said, taking Annaliese’s hand. “My grandfather will say nothing. He will say nothing at all. I told him that whatever made you come to us the way you did, it was nothing you should be made to return to. If anyone asks about you, he will say he hasn’t seen you in years and that I am living in Brussels now.”

  “Brussels?”

  Katrine smiled and shrugged. “I did live there for a little while when I was in school. I came back this direction when my grandmother died. Grandfather doesn’t do well on his own and with me so far away.”

  Annaliese stared at the band of gold around her finger. “I didn’t think I would make it this far, Katrine. I thought I’d be shot trying to get to you. I don’t know what to do with myself now. I don’t know where to go.”

  “You don’t have to go anywhere.”

  She looked up at her friend. “I can’t go back to him, Katrine. I can’t. He’s not . . . He’s not what we used to daydream our husbands would be like.”