Danzig Passage

by Bodie Thoene

  Lori held Jacob’s eyes with her own fearful look before he blew out the little candle. He touched her gently on the arm.

  “You go first,” Jacob instructed Jamie. It made sense. If Jamie were caught climbing out the window, he would simply say that he had run away from the Hitler Youth and come here. They would take him back, but the others would have time to hide before the church was searched again.

  Jacob hefted Jamie up and then held the groaning crates steady as the boy cautiously picked his way up toward the sliver of light shining through the boards.

  Seconds passed slowly before Jamie called down in an exultant whisper, “At the top.”

  The sound of creaking followed as he pushed against the boards, hesitated to look, then slipped out into the cold night air.

  Jacob’s hand sweated as he waited a full minute before Jamie called in through the boards: “All is calm!”

  Jacob tapped Mark on his shoulder and sent him clambering up the pile next. The barricade creaked and the sound of singing increased as Mark escaped to the outside with Jamie.

  “My turn?” Lori asked with hesitant excitement. Jacob could hear her voice shake at the thought of being outside again after so long. Did she also regret leaving their refuge in some way, as he did?

  “Good luck,” he said as he took her hand to help her up.

  She did not move for a moment but stood there beside him, holding his damp hand. Then she stood on her tiptoes and brushed her lips briefly against his before she began to climb.

  He listened to her breathe as she reached in the dark for handholds and scaled the fifteen-foot heap much more slowly than Mark or Jamie.

  “Come on!” urged Jamie impatiently through the crack in the boards. “Hurry up, will you?”

  At this she slipped and cried out as a box tumbled down, narrowly missing Jacob.

  “It’s all right,” he assured her hoarsely. “Go easy, Lori. I will catch you if you fall.”

  He did not tell her that he would not be able to see her if she slipped and fell from the top of the dark pile. Probably he would be covered by the rubble before she hit him. All the same, his words seemed to reassure her. Seconds later she called down that she had reached the window and then she, too, squeezed out through the space.

  “Come on, Jacob!” Mark chided him. “All ist klar!”

  As Jacob scaled the heap with ease, it swayed precariously beneath his weight. He reached up, grasping the ledge of the broken window just as the boxes rumbled and spilled away out from under his feet. He punched at the last of the boards over the window with his fist and then pushed through the space. Their only retreat now lay on the bottom of the basement floor!

  There would be no going back. Mark and Jamie and Lori surrounded him as the rumble emanated up from the basement.

  “The ladder has fallen!”

  “We can’t get back!”

  “And so we press on,” Jacob said, brushing them off and creeping forward from the wall of the church to the bushes that surrounded the building. The others followed—first Lori, then Mark. Jamie brought up the rear. Like a clumsy parade of waddling ducks, they crept through the flower bed, careful not to get their clothes dirty. They must not look the part of children who had escaped through a hedge and then a muddy churchyard!

  Jacob peered from between the branches of the bushes. The graveyard was dark. Headstones, lopsided from the sinking earth, rose up as gray shadows before them. Crosses and square above-ground crypts made silhouettes like the unlit buildings of a deserted city. Beyond that was the iron gate they had passed through on Kristal Nacht, a lifetime ago.

  He hesitated a moment too long for Mark, who tugged impatiently at his jacket.

  “Hurry! The watchman!” he warned.

  But Jacob knew the watchman would not make his rounds of the desolate place until eleven o’clock—still nearly an hour away. He waved his hand, warning Mark not to attempt to instruct him. Then Lori gasped and pulled at his arm. Jacob looked up and saw the watchman’s light swing around the corner of the church and leap from boarded window to boarded window at the far end of the building. Only a minute and the old man would be shining his light on the foursome!

  Jacob broke from the bushes and ran for the cover of a headstone. He did not think of the knees of his traveling trousers as he lunged behind a tall black marble obelisk.

  Like foxes breaking from a hedge, the three followed after him, each finding a gravestone to crouch behind. Jacob could not see the others, but he could hear them breathing, panting with fright as the footsteps of the watchman quickened and moved toward the bushes.

  Do not breathe! Be quiet! Oh, God, make the fellow deaf! Jacob thought as he leaned his cheek against the cold stone and tried to melt into its inscription.

  The watchman jogged toward the broken basement window and the loose boards that hung there. Someone had gone through them, broken the Nazi taboo!

  The blood drummed so hard in Jacob’s ears that he could not hear the others breathing against their own headstones. Like an evil finger, the light of the watchman probed the shadows surrounding New Church, touching the bushes and frostbitten plants, scrutinizing the walls of stone; less than ten feet from where the four lay curled in fear on the dirt of sunken graves.

  I will have to kill him, Jacob thought as he closed his eyes as if to hide from the light! He was an old man, Jacob knew, but Jacob had never killed a man before. How to do it?

  His fingers closed around a stone as the old man swept the light up the wall to an arched window in the main auditorium and then down again to the broken window of their basement escape hatch.

  “Himmel!” cried the old man in alarm. And then again he whispered, “Himmel!”

  33

  Tor Auf!

  Kill him! Kill him! Kill him! The blood pounded in Jacob’s ears as he clutched the stone and crept forward to strike the old watchman down. He slipped behind Lori, who gasped at his unexpected touch. The watchman whirled around at the sound and stared in terror at the black tombstones.

  At that moment, a flock of upraised torches fluttered by in the street. The old man looked at them once and shouted for help. Then he raised his whistle and blew a shrill alarm, halting the torches. It was too late to kill the old man. Too late to run for the gate.

  “HELP!” The old man ran back along the path to open the gate. “Someone has broken into the church! Thieves have broken into the—”

  Lori grasped Jacob’s hand. Mark and Jamie scrambled to huddle with them.

  Jacob watched as the torches seemed to multiply. They saw no retreat back into the church, no escape from the churchyard. It was over for them.

  “I’ll try to draw them away, “he said. “Run for it!”

  “No!” Jamie cried. “I know a place!”

  With no more explanation than that, he leaped out from behind the tombstone. “Come on!”

  They followed without question. No one else had any ideas. Lori fell in the mud. Jacob grabbed her arm and dragged her up. He held tightly to her as they ran blindly toward the back of the churchyard, toward the white family crypts that formed a tiny community for the dead beneath the trees of New Church.

  Behind them the swelling voices of a mob surged through the open gate. They had only seconds before the light of the torches would pierce the covering safety of this darkness.

  “Here!” Jamie cried as they reached the square stone crypt of the Halder family. “The key is above the gate!” He jumped up and tried to reach the ledge where the key was hidden. The lights behind them moved along the sides of the church, dipping down to examine every boarded window.

  Jacob reached up and ran his hand along the stone ledge in search of the key. It was not there. Jamie cried out and shook the rusty iron bars of the crypt gate.

  “It was here! The key was here!” His words were lost beneath the shouts of men who called out to one another and broke down the boards over the doors of the church. Their guns drawn, they peered into the darkness beyon
d the torchlight. The two swept their torches near the ground in search of clues. As the doors of New Church crashed open, Jacob dropped to his knees with Lori to sift through leaves and dirt for the missing key.

  Jamie laid his face against the bars. The hiding place. So close. No one had ever found him and Alfie in this place. And now the key had vanished! Tonight, when hiding was not a game, but a matter of survival—of all nights, the key of the crypt was not to be found.

  Lori prayed as they searched. “Tor auf! Oh, Lord, please. Tor auf!”

  The thump of footsteps circled the outside fence. No use trying to scale the stone wall. Too late now for Jamie to take them out through the break in the fence. Every escape was cut off.

  “Lord,” whispered Jamie, “Tor auf . . . ”

  ***

  In his restless sleep, Alfie heard the sound of leaves and footsteps. Whispered voices penetrated his dreams. The angels stood beside him again as they often had throughout the weeks. He felt their light through his closed eyelids. He did not open his eyes. They were there. He did not need to see them.

  The kittens stirred in their box. They knew the angels had come back as well. Alfie did not need to wake up and check them. The dreams were too nice; he did not want to wake up.

  “Alf . . . ” The light glowed brighter as the angel spoke his name like Mama used to do.

  “Yes?” he whispered with a smile.

  “Alf . . . they cannot find the key.”

  “Huh?”

  “Tor . . . the gate.” The voice was more urgent than gentle.

  Alfie frowned in his sleep. The angel wanted him to do something. “What?”

  “Alf . . . Alf . . . Tor . . . Alf . . . Tor auf! Open the gate!” The angel touched his face and told him to wake up.

  Alfie breathed in deeply and opened his eyes as the bright light dwindled to a small star and vanished. He was awake. The sounds of scratching and whispered voices sifted down the steps.

  “Where is it? Where?” It was the voice of Jamie. Clear as anything. It was Jamie!

  ***

  Torches moved deliberately up the path toward the Halder crypt. Light scoured the other tombs and probed stones for signs of the living among the dead. The men who searched did not seem to be in a hurry. While shouts resounded from inside the church building, the flames of the torches sniffed nearer the crypt. Jacob rose from his knees and stood with clenched fists. He would fight them when they came, but it would do no good.

  As they stood to face their fate, a large, clumsy hand reached out from inside the crypt and touched Jamie’s shoulder. Jamie dropped to his knees in terror but did not cry out.

  “Is that you, Jamie?” the old familiar voice of Alfie asked softly. “Are you playing hide-and-seek, Jamie?”

  “Alfie!” Jamie could hardly whisper. “Tor auf! Open the gate, Alfie! Do you have the key?”

  “I got the key, Jamie,” the voice said too slowly. Then Alfie’s giant hand pawed the air between the bars and, with unwavering accuracy, the key slid into the lock and the gate swung back.

  The fugitives tumbled into the crypt. They scrambled between Alfie’s legs as he slowly swung the gate shut and turned the key in an unhurried fashion.

  “I’m glad you came, Jamie,” he said, his voice frighteningly loud.

  “Shut up!” Jacob ordered.

  Jamie was gentle. “We have to hide now, Alfie. They are—” He pointed at the swaying torches.

  “Oh. Shhhh.” Alfie put a finger to his lips and then spread his arms wide to herd them to the back corner. “Down there. In the basement.”

  The square hold in the floor blended into shadow. Jamie slid down first, showing the others where to go. The blackness was heavy and palpable, the air thick with the smell of old sardines and mold. Alfie was last down the steps. He slid the stone hatch over the opening just as the voices of the pursuers swept into the crypt.

  “I thought I heard—”

  The hollow clunk of stone sliding into place cut off the words.

  “Shhhh,” Alfie said with a sound like escaping steam. The voices outside penetrated the stone floor. The iron gate rattled loudly. Lori leaned her head against Jacob’s arm.

  “Shhhh,” Alfie warned again. A thin line of light penetrated the seam around the stone hatch. Within that square, the figure of Alfie stood framed on the steps. His face glowed with excitement, and he smiled as he stared up at the light. The big, clumsy hand reached up to where the brightest beam gleamed through a chink. And then, as though he were brushing it away, it suddenly vanished and the blackness was complete once again.

  ***

  Never was there such a Christmas tree as the tree in the center of the big room in the Red Lion House. Charles Dickens himself could not have imagined a more green or full or fragrant tree as he sat by the fire and wrote A Christmas Carol.

  Or so Murphy said as he stood tiptoe on the stepladder and placed the gossamer angel on the top. Branches bowed down under the weight of candy canes and gingerbread cookies and a hundred colored lights that winked on and off as Charles and Louis watched with wonder.

  The lights were new, sent from Mr. Trump in New York. He had purchased them at Macy’s in New York and sent along a note explaining that the same sort of lights were used on the tree in America at the White House.

  This bit of important information gave the lights an aura of magic for the boys. Charles and Louis had never believed in Santa Claus or elves working at the North Pole. Such fantasies had faded early as they had witnessed photographs of Hermann Göring dressed in a Santa suit, handing out gifts to good little members of the Hitler Youth. But Charles and Louis did believe in America and the White House!

  Cabled all the information about the prisoner Pastor Karl Ibsen, the White House had made appeals to the German government on his behalf, and on behalf of his missing children. This lifted Anna’s spirits. Every day she and Elisa walked across the square to the little church to pray for them. There was still hope, in spite of news of Helen Ibsen’s death.

  It was, at long last, Christmas Eve. The lights of the Christmas tree reflected on the polished wood floor of Red Lion House. Dinner dishes were cleared away and stacked. Everyone had tasted the puddings and pies, and the adults savored the very last of the Viennese coffee.

  A warm fire crackled and glowed in the fireplace. Charles and Louis sat Indian-style on the hooked floral hearth rug as Murphy and Theo read A Christmas Carol in the very room where some said Dickens might have written the story.

  Curled up on the sofa, Anna and Elisa listened to the story for the first time as well. Theo read the part of the narrator and sometimes paused to interpret the unclear passages from English into German for the struggling language students in the group. Murphy embellished the speaking roles with all the terror of Ebenezer Scrooge as he came face-to-face with the dark-hooded Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.

  Theo raised his eyes to make certain the boys had caught the meaning of the English words. The terrified expressions of their faces confirmed that they understood perfectly. He pressed on with the story:

  “They reached an iron gate. He paused to look round before entering. A churchyard! Here, then, the wretched man whose name he had now to learn lay beneath the ground.”

  “Kirchhof!” Louis uttered the word for graveyard.

  At this point, Charles covered his eyes as if he did not want to see what Theo would read next. But the picture of the graveyard remained, so he uncovered his eyes again and held tightly on to Louis’ hand.

  Theo continued with a slightly quavering voice.

  “It was a worthy place. Walled in by houses; overrun by grass and weeds, the growth of vegetation’s death, not life . . . choked up with too much burying; fat with repleted appetite. A worthy place!”

  Charles knew that the churchyard was not really a worthy place. This terrible graveyard of Christmas Future was a place so forsaken and forlorn that even the weeds died on top of one another for lack of rain. He squeezed Louis’ hand
and stared hard at the coals on the grate as Theo continued.

  “The Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed down to One. He advanced toward it trembling. The Phantom was exactly as it had been, but Scrooge dreaded that he saw new meaning in its solemn shape . . . .”

  Louis’ eyes grew wider, and he whispered the word for gravestone, “Grabstein!” He shuddered and leaned closer to Charles.

  “The Spirit stretched his finger out toward the granite slab that marked the former existence of a human being—”

  This was a terrible time for the story to be interrupted by the sound of the doorbell ringing like an angry bee. Everyone jumped. Charles grabbed Louis around the neck and they both squealed. Then everyone laughed and sat back and breathed easier.

  The doorbell rang again.

  “Probably carolers,” Elisa said. She went for the platter of cookies, and Charles raced Louis to the window to look.

  “Not carolers,” Louis said with disappointment. “It is some old beggar woman!” Their story had been interrupted not for music, but for charity. Murphy told them that this was just the sort of twist in plot line that Dickens would approve of!

  At first Anna did not recognize the woman who stood in the halo of the porch light and pressed her finger so urgently to the bell. Her brown coat was badly worn, torn at the sleeve and mended. Her hair was concealed beneath a tan scarf, her hands bare. Her shoes were run down at the heels and her woolen stockings were mended in several places.

  Anna frowned through the window, pitying the beggar who had come to the door on such a night. Then the finger pressed hard again on the buzzer and the face turned to look up, beseeching heaven; praying that Anna Lindheim would answer the door!

  Anna gasped and put her hand over her mouth in an instant of recognition. The face of this once-beautiful thirty-eight-year-old woman had visibly aged, but Helen Ibsen gazed up at her as though from the grave.

  “Helen!” Anna cried through the glass, and Helen’s face broke into a broad smile. Reports claimed she had died in prison in Germany, but here she was! Dear God, a miracle! Helen Ibsen standing at Anna’s door in London!