Twilight has yielded to darkness. A few determined crickets still sing in the winter weeds. As he rounds the corner of the house and makes for the staircase, he finds Elisabeth sitting on the lowest step, waiting for him. She is wrapped in a winter coat with a brown rabbit-fur collar. It’s the kind of coat a woman in Berlin would wear, or in Munich, and it’s the first time he has seen it—but then, it hasn’t been cold enough for winter coats until now. Elisabeth rises when she sees him. In the dimness, Anton can make out another garment folded over her arm—a man’s coat. It must have belonged to her first husband, for it isn’t Anton’s.
She holds the coat out to him. “Put this on. It’s cold, and that old thing you’re wearing looks like it wants to fall apart.”
Anton does as Elisabeth bids. “We had such a long summer, but it’s over now.” The coat is warm and heavy, perfumed with cedar to keep the moths away. “Thank you.”
“I heard you playing, out there in the field.”
He laughs, quiet and rueful. You’re never alone in a small town.
“You play that trumpet as nicely as you play the organ.”
“God has given me a few gifts, I suppose.”
“I think God has given you a great many gifts, Anton.” She hugs her body tightly and turns away to gaze out into the black orchard. Beyond the trees, a faint suggestion of Frau Hertz’s house barely stands out against the night sky. “I’m sorry we quarreled.”
“I am, too.” Is it this easy, making up with a woman?
“I can see, Anton, how important music is to you. But we do have needs as a family. There must be a compromise somewhere.”
“I know. You’re right; there must.”
She looks at the cornet for a long time. Then she bites her lip, a gesture that seems entirely too girlish for her. He thinks for a moment that she’ll ask him to play again, and he wonders, in his dark mood, whether he can conjure up any song that isn’t melancholy. But then she glances up the stairs to the cottage above. Maria’s squeals come down; her brothers are tickling her at the supper table. The children are rowdy enough tonight; there is no reason for music. It would only distract them from their meal or drive them further from sleep.
She says, “Paul—I mean, my husband, not Little Paul—” Then she hesitates, offering a shy, apologetic smile. He is her husband now. She has forgotten it, momentarily. “My first husband, Paul . . . We often enjoyed music together.”
“Did you?” Gently. In the five weeks of their acquaintance—and three weeks of marriage—he had never learned Herr Herter’s Christian name. He is glad to know that his charming, lively little stepson was named for his father. It keeps the man’s memory alive, now that he is gone.
“We listened to the radio shows every Tuesday night. When we first left Stuttgart, I mean.” She laughs, uncomfortable with the memory, disbelieving that she’s sharing it with him now. In a heartbeat of stunned silence, he can all but hear her thoughts: What has possessed me to speak of something so private, and why now?
“When you left the city? You make it sound like you ran away.”
“We did. My parents didn’t approve, because there were rumors, you see—my reputation was in danger.” She narrows her eyes. “But I never would have done anything sinful. They were only stories.”
“You are the last woman I would suspect of sin.”
“We came here, to Unterboihingen, but the radios were so bad back then. They aren’t much better now, to tell the truth. We could hardly tune anything in, but for some reason, on Tuesday nights only, one particular station would come in, clear as a bell.” She smiles, remembering, softening completely for the first time since Anton has known her. He is gripped by the sudden urge to touch her—not in any carnal way, only to lay a hand on her arm or her shoulder or on the fur collar of her coat, so that he might experience a part of her joy. As if he might capture in his hand the rarity of her happiness. “We would dance, then, just the two of us. The music was like something from another world, from dreams. It always seemed to me as if that music could pick us up and move us anywhere we wanted to go.” She stops and shuts her eyes tightly. “I sound foolish.”
“No—I understand. I know just what you mean.”
“After we were married, Paul bought a phonograph. I sold it years ago, after he died. I don’t know now why I sold it. I suppose I assumed the war would be over soon, and the money from its sale would be enough to keep us going until then. Until better times came. I wish I still had that phonograph now.”
Silence. They are both caught in the past, snared by their private recollections of the time when we all thought this war would end.
“Did you have a favorite song?” He doesn’t know why he asks it. Perhaps he only wants to see her more clearly—Elisabeth as a glad young bride, in a time before the world beat her and burned her with its irons. “One you liked to dance to?”
She shakes her head, refusing to answer. The memory is too dear. But after a moment, after a pensive silence, she says quickly, “Marlene Dietrich. ‘Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß auf Liebe eingestellt.’”
Then she turns and climbs the stairs, climbs back up to her children. She goes with steady, marching steps, arms wrapped tight around her body. She moves like a woman who never expects war to end.
14
Three days before Christmas Eve, the moon is shining clear and bright on blankets of snow, knee-deep across sleeping fields. There is light enough to see for miles, so the family walks to the church. They’re carrying gifts for Father Emil, who has been so kind to them all. This night is peaceful, and though it’s cold, it’s as beautiful as the world must have been on the night of the Nativity, when the Christ child first came down to grace us.
The children skid their feet along the road’s packed snow, while Elisabeth and Anton walk more sedately behind. Tucked beneath her arm is a loaf of cinnamon bread, wrapped in waxed paper; Elisabeth has saved the paper carefully through countless prior uses, and now it’s soft and creased like parchment, like the pages of an old book. The scent of warm spice asserts itself against the flat gray smell of winter. Anton is carrying a small box. Inside, the little figures he has carved for Father Emil rattle with every step—a camel and a donkey for the church’s crèche.
When they arrive at St. Kolumban, stamping their feet in the cold yard, the children sing a rough chorus, a Christmas tune. Anton and Elisabeth join in. They laugh more than they sing, all of them, and when Anton lays his hand on his wife’s arm to stop her slipping in the snow, she doesn’t pull away.
Emil opens the door. The church inside is dark, of course, for the sun has set. Stuttgart suffered a major bombardment only a few weeks ago, one of the worst it has faced thus far. With the bombing so recent, one would expect no planes tonight, but one can never be sure. We must always be cautious in times like these. But even without a golden glow spilling from the open door, a fulsome warmth still emanates from the nave. It’s the spirit of the place, love and hope gathered over centuries, graven in the very stones.
“Come in, come in,” Emil says. “I’m having a humble little celebration inside, only reading my scriptures by candlelight—but you are always welcome to join me.”
The priest takes Elisabeth’s arm and guides her through the dark. The children hold to the hem of her city-fine coat, and Anton stumbles along behind. Emil leaves them at the front pew, then rustles down the length of the nave; there is a rattle of drapes being pulled across windows, their metal hoops sliding over curtain rods. The children whisper and kick their feet—excited by the novelty of being here, in the dark and without the congregation, but conscious of parental expectation: we must be reverent at church, even when it’s not Sunday, even when it’s dark as the inside of a shoe.
Father Emil makes his way back to the front of the nave, feeling his way along the pews. A moment later, he strikes a match, and a great white candle blossoms on the altar. Its singular light seems to draw in all the appointments of holiness, pulling them into a close and
intimate proximity. The humble gilded crucifix, the brass candlesticks without ornamentation, the censer hanging from its tripod, close at hand. The church has never looked more beautiful than it does now, in this quiet amber glow. Its divinity tonight seems private, singular, a gift softly bestowed on this small, new-made family. Their offerings of cinnamon bread and carved animals are embarrassingly small by comparison to friendship and candlelight, but Father Emil exclaims over his gifts with unrestrained gratitude.
He holds up the carved camel, admiring the workmanship. “I didn’t know you were a carver, Anton.”
“I’m not much of one.”
“There, I must disagree.” He turns the camel in his hands; the newly exposed wood is pale in the candlelight, so the little figure stands out against the shadowy nave. “He has so much expression. I could almost believe this is the very camel who witnessed the Savior’s birth.”
Maria reaches for the figure. “Let me play with it. I want to see!”
“Now, now,” Elisabeth scolds. “You had your chance to see it while your stepfather was carving it. I won’t have you breaking it.”
“I don’t mind,” Emil says to Elisabeth. “She can’t do these little beasties any harm.” He gives Maria the camel and its donkey companion. “Do you know where the crèche is? Up there, at the front of the sanctuary.”
Maria holds the carved animals to her chest. She blinks past the pool of candlelight, peering anxiously into darkness beyond. “I can’t see it.”
Emil rises, laying his hand on the girl’s head. “Don’t be afraid, little one. I’ll go with you and show you where it is. You can set the camel and donkey up wherever you please.”
A few moments later, Anton can make out Maria and the priest seated beside the dim crèche, playing with the wooden figures. Father Emil gives the Wise Men funny voices; he makes the angel sing until Maria giggles herself into breathlessness. The boys soon join in, pausing first to break off pieces of cinnamon bread. Father Emil has said they might eat as much as they like.
“The Vater has always had a special bond with Maria,” Elisabeth says, watching them all at play. “I can’t understand it; she’s such a naughty girl. One would think a priest would prefer a good, obedient child, like Albert.”
“Maybe he sees something in her—” Anton is about to say, Something that reminds him of the boy he was, long ago. But Elisabeth says, “No doubt, he sees a little sinner in need of salvation. I don’t know what I’m to do with her, Anton.”
With the children well into their game, Emil returns, a trace of reluctance in his sigh, in the slow way he sits on the pew. “It’s good to forget, for a few minutes,” he says quietly. “It’s a great blessing, to laugh and play. Children are so resilient, in times like these. Would that we could all bear up as well.” He tastes the bread and nods in appreciation. “It has been too long since I’ve had something so sweet. Where did you get so much cinnamon, Elisabeth?”
“I’ve been saving it for someone special.”
“I have done something right in this life, if God has deemed me worthy of such an honor.” He turns to Anton. “How are you faring with your music lessons, my friend?”
Just before he answers, the air chills around Anton and Elisabeth. He hopes Emil can’t feel that moment of tension. The matter of the scrap metal—the brass relics of memory—still lies unresolved between husband and wife. The family does need more money; Elisabeth was right about that. Unless he finds some way to provide it, Anton must be counted derelict in his duty to family and to God. But where is the sense in spoiling this night with such unpleasant talk? Let us not dredge up the old quarrel—not here and now.
“Lessons are going well,” he says. “The Beckers have hired me, too, once a week.”
“That’s three families,” Emil says. “Six children in all, unless I’m mistaken.”
Elisabeth says, “It’s a good start.”
“I never would have thought,” Anton begins. He’s about to say, I never would have thought Unterboihingen was hiding so many well-off families in its hills and dells. But before he can finish, a low moan interrupts the conversation. It’s coming from somewhere high above the nave’s arches, above the roof of St. Kolumban. It’s coming from the sky.
The children drop the wooden figures. They look up from their play with wide eyes and open mouths. The moan intensifies; it rises, deepens. It becomes a hoarse, angry roar, fast approaching. There isn’t a soul in Germany but knows what that sound means. Even the smallest children understand it.
“Quick,” Emil says, standing, spreading his arms wide as if to shepherd them all. “Into the shelter.”
“Where is it?” Al cries. They know where to shelter at home—in the space below the house, alongside the animals. And at school there is a cellar; every week they practice going down into the darkness. They practice staying calm. When we are out there in the countryside, walking along the roads and fields, any ditch will do. But where can we go now?
Something snaps, whatever force of terror tethers the boys to immobility. They bolt in the same instant, darting off in opposite directions. Elisabeth is quick; she catches Paul by the hand as he runs past in blind terror. The boy flies to the end of her reach, and his feet go out from beneath him. He screams in surprise and pain as he collides with a wooden pew, but at least he is safe with his mother. When Paul is on his feet again, Elisabeth spins him about and points him toward the priest. She says, loud and stern enough to cut through his fear, “Follow Vater Emil, Paul. Don’t leave his side.”
Al has already sprinted down the center aisle, quick as a deer; he is lost somewhere in the darkness near the church’s entry doors. He’ll run out into the night next, out into the snow—his dark coat visible from above, vulnerable against the pale ground. Anton shouts, raising his voice in a hard, commanding tone for the first time since becoming a father. “Albert!” A moment later, Albert returns, and Anton’s heart lurches with relief. The boy’s eyes are huge, strained; his face, as he reappears in candlelight, seems all eyes. Anton shoves him toward his brother.
Gathering the boys close, Emil calls over the increasing roar, “Where has Maria gone?”
Anton glances at the crèche; the figures lie where they have fallen, but Maria has vanished.
“Mother above!” Elisabeth cries. She goes to her boys and takes the youngest again; Paul squeals as her grip tightens on his arm, but she holds him closer. The airplanes scream closer, too, rattling the windowpanes. One of the drapes, Anton can see, is not quite closed. How much light have they revealed? He imagines the plane, the pilot; the view from above. A streak of gold reflected on the snow, betraying the life cringing below.
Emil sees the curtain, too. “The candle, Anton!”
“But Maria—”
“Be quick!”
He runs up to the altar, no time to pay proper respects. He crosses himself as he goes, a terse bid for the Lord’s forgiveness—for mercy, if any is to be had. He blows out the candle, and the sanctuary plunges into darkness. Anton calls over the roaring engines, “Where are the children?”
From somewhere close by, Emil answers. “The boys are with Elisabeth; I told her where to go.”
“Maria! We must find her!”
Just then, Anton hears the girl crying. She is somewhere below his feet, but he can’t see her, can’t feel her when he drops to the ground, pawing through darkness. Father Emil is beside him in a flash, falling to his knees, pulling the cloth from the altar. The blackness is so dense, Anton pushes his hands through it as if he might part shadows by force and reveal his small daughter, cowering and afraid, in a shaft of protective light. But there is no light here. The dark is everywhere, stifling and thick.
Maria screams, “Machen Sie die schlechten Bomben weg!” Make the bad bombs go away! Beneath the altar table, her voice is everywhere, splitting Anton’s head, strident with fear. But still he can’t find her. His hands grasp only emptiness. Where is she? Merciful Lord, give me back my child!
“I have her,” Emil says. “Come!”
One hand on the priest’s shoulder, Anton follows him, stumbling through the darkness. Emil knows where to go. There is a dry rasp of old door hinges, barely audible over the sound of the planes. Emil murmurs soothing words to Maria, who wails wordlessly, her cries muffled, face pressed hard against the priest’s shoulder or chest.
“Reach down, Anton,” Emil says. “Directly down from where you stand. The door to the shelter is just below.”
“I can’t see.”
“You’ll find an iron ring near your feet. Pull it straight up.”
The planes roar closer, closer. This is the night when Unterboihingen will be seen, when our perfect village, our sanctuary of brotherhood, will be struck, destroyed, undone. In the morning, we will find it broken, shattered houses bleeding children’s cries into icy streets. Someone has left a candle burning. Someone has left a curtain open. It’s all over now.
He finds the ring; he strains upward. A creak of wood and age, almost as loud as the planes, and something opens below. A gust of cold, damp air pummels him in the face, a smell of decades and mildew.
“Careful, now,” Emil says. One hand steadies Anton, strong on his upper arm. “Take Maria from me. I’ll go down first and get a light burning. I know where the candles and matches are kept.”
The girl is stiff with terror when Anton scoops her against his chest. He rocks her, singing a lullaby close to her ear, but she doesn’t hear him. She hears nothing but the thunder of death, feels only the rattling of the church’s fragile old bones. A moment later, a spot of light appears, down in a pit beneath the floor. The light is dim, but it’s enough to illuminate the tiny room in which they’re all standing. Elisabeth is cowering by a wall; the boys have buried their faces against her body. At Anton’s feet, a ladder descends into the darkness, six, seven, rungs down.
The Ragged Edge of Night Page 12
