Anton touches the swastika, traces its clawed, broken arms with the tip of a finger. The paper is dry and ordinary. It whispers beneath his touch. This book is a small and simple thing. Why should it hold power over him or his family? He presses the edge of the coin against the cover. The fibers yield. A hiss of paper, a rasp of metal, and the swastika is gone, scratched away as if it had never existed.
A high, thin scream erupts from the house, from somewhere just outside it. For a moment, he believes he has been found out already, that some demon from Hell has come to seize him in this moment of rebellion, to drag him off to Dachau. But then he knows it’s Maria crying. He drops book and coin on a dusty shelf beside the door and runs. The girl has tumbled down the stairs; her nose is bleeding, and her face is red from her screams. He scoops her up in his arms, kissing her, talking close to her ear so she can hear him over the sound of her own cries. “What’s wrong, Maria? Where are you hurt?”
Elisabeth comes running down the stairs, her mouth round with panic. Her nightdress billows behind her legs. The boys are just behind, still in their pajamas; they hug themselves against the chill.
“For goodness’ sake, Anton, what has happened?” Elisabeth cries. She dabs at Maria’s bloody nose with the sleeve of her nightdress.
Maria chokes on her sobs. “I thought Vati went out to get the eggs, and I came to help. I fell down the stairs.”
“How far did she fall? How many stairs? Is she badly hurt?” Elisabeth pats her small daughter, prodding her little bones, but Maria’s tears are already dissipating. She wipes her face against Anton’s shoulder, leaving a smear of blood.
“She’s more frightened than hurt, I think.” He kisses her cheek again. “There, you see? Her nose has already stopped bleeding. You’re all right, aren’t you?”
Maria nods, sniffling.
Elisabeth heaves a deep sigh, a mother’s shuddering relief. Then she begins to scold. “You are the most careless girl I’ve ever seen! And naughty, to go running outside before you’ve had breakfast. Before you’re properly dressed!”
Maria whimpers, “You aren’t properly dressed, either.”
“No back talk. I won’t put up with it, not today. Not from you.”
Albert and Paul, assured that their sister will survive, scuttle down to the old shed, drawn by its open door. Boys are always ready for adventure, even first thing in the morning. Since they are already up, they may as well have some fun before school begins.
“Put her down, Anton. If she’s not hurt, then she doesn’t need any coddling. She needs a good swat on her backside, that’s what.”
Maria, on her own two feet now, hides her face against Anton’s leg. She mutters, “I don’t need a swat. It’s bad enough, falling down the stairs.”
“Then go up to your room and get dressed.”
Maria goes, climbing the stairs with assiduous care, both hands clinging to the rail. Elisabeth watches her for a moment, tense, like a horse ready to shy at any rustle in the grass. When Maria is safely inside, she turns to Anton with a frown. “What were you doing up so early?”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
The nature of her frown changes, from annoyance to concern. She tilts her head one way, then the other, examining his complexion, eyeing his brow for beads of sweat.
“I’m not ill,” he says. “I’m perfectly well.” He almost says, Möbelbauer expects me to tell our children—and all the children in this town—how to be good National Socialists. How to worship Adolf Hitler above even God and Jesus. It’s enough to rob any man of his sleep. But he stops himself. He remembers his dignified, very proper wife saying, He shits on the women of this town. The last thing she needs now is a reminder of Herr Möbelbauer.
“Well,” Elisabeth says at length, “even if you aren’t ill, you should try for another hour or two of sleep. You look pale and tired.”
He tries to smile. “I feel pale and tired.”
“Boys,” Elisabeth calls, “come out of that shed. Go get ready for breakfast. It will be time soon for—”
“Look, Mother!” Paul emerges from the shed, running, holding something up above his head as if in victory. “Look what we found! What is it?”
It is small, papery. Newly scraped clean.
Anton pulls the workbook from Paul’s hand as the boy passes him. He presses it against his chest, cover side in, as Paul gives a wordless whine of disappointment.
“What is that thing, Anton?” Elisabeth fixes him with her eyes. The air has gone still around her.
“It’s nothing important.” To the boys, he says, “Do as your mother tells you.”
They grumble, but they run upstairs. Elisabeth is in no mood to deal with recalcitrance; the boys can sense it, and they are wise enough not to take the chance.
Alone now at the foot of the stairs, Elisabeth and Anton watch one another in silence, she wary, he anxious. He slides the workbook down toward his pocket, but the motion only makes her press her lips together, and her face reddens.
“What is it?” she says quietly.
“Only my workbook, from my Wehrmacht days.”
“Why are you so quick to hide it?”
“I’m not hiding it,” he says, edging the thing farther from her sight.
She holds out her hand. “If you’re not trying to hide it, then let me see.”
What can he do? He passes the book to Elisabeth. She turns it over, cover side up, and for a moment she sees nothing unusual. A look of mild confusion crosses her face, a pinch of her brow. Then she sees—she understands. She stares in horror at the place where the swastika should be. Slowly, she lifts her face to meet Anton’s eye, mute and afraid.
She returns the book to his hand. Anton prays this will be the end of it, nothing more will come. But then she brushes past him, moving stiffly, and enters the shed.
“Elisabeth, wait . . .” He hurries after her, too late to alter fate’s course. He has left the trunk open; its lock lies undone upon the shelf. Elisabeth approaches the open chest as if it might contain a nest of vipers. When she looks inside, Anton thinks she might have preferred to find a writhing knot of snakes than the musical instruments.
She whirls, stares at him, her mouth hanging open. “You never sold them. I thought—”
He shakes his head.
“My God, Anton—where has the money come from, then?” She glances at the defaced workbook in his hand. He can see the moment when realization dawns, the moment when she fits every piece of his puzzle together. Her face flushes red with her rapid pulse. It glows like a fire in the darkness.
Elisabeth all but runs from the shed. The nightdress flutters in her wake, a bird’s startled wings. She bends as she passes Anton, fitting herself against the doorframe so she will not touch any part of him. She takes the stairs two at a time, as if the Devil is after her—as if the Devil stands there in the yard, helpless and bewildered, curling the workbook in his clenched fist.
“Wait,” Anton calls up to her. He runs up the stairs, but he can’t catch her. “Listen to what I have to say. Please, Elisabeth—only listen!”
Inside the house, the children are dressed, though their hair is still uncombed. They look up from the table, where they are helping to make breakfast, spreading butter on slices of bread.
“You aren’t going to school today.” Elisabeth speaks shortly, words clipped and angry. Paul and Maria cheer, but Al looks pale; he glances from Anton to Elisabeth. “Pack up your clothes in your knapsacks. We are going away.”
Al says at once, “Is Anton coming with us?”
Elisabeth doesn’t answer him, only goes to her room and shuts the door. He can hear her opening and closing drawers, the rattle of closet hangers as she pulls her dresses down.
Anton taps on the door. “Elisabeth, please. May I come in?”
She doesn’t answer. He decides to take her silence for acceptance, and he lets himself in.
“Don’t do this,” he says quietly when the door is shut behind him. “My hea
rt will break. I should have told you all about this; I’m sorry I kept it from you.”
She wheels from the closet, crumpling a dress in her distressed hands, crushing it against her chest. “And what do you imagine I would have said, if you had told me?” Her eyes are burning with outraged disbelief. “How could you think it was safe, Anton? How could you think it was wise?”
The door creaks open; the children are clustered there, Paul and Maria staring at them both with wide, teary eyes. Albert tugs at their hands, but the younger children will not look away.
“I didn’t think it was safe.”
Elisabeth cuts off his next words, whatever he’d thought to say. “Don’t talk about this in front of the children.” She turns to them, hard-faced and determined. “Go and pack. Be quick.”
The children weep as they go off to their rooms. Al says to Maria, “I’ll pack your knapsack for you.”
“Where on earth do you think to take them?” Anton says quietly.
“Anywhere that’s far away from you and this . . . this thing you do.”
“There is no place safer than Unterboihingen. You know that, Elisabeth!”
“Even this town isn’t safe as long as you’re doing . . . this! You could get us all killed!” She blanches as a terrible thought overtakes her. She wavers where she stands, and for a moment, he thinks she might faint. But Elisabeth is not the fainting type. She rights herself before Anton can reach for her. “Oh, merciful Mother—what about Möbelbauer? Herr Franke . . . he knows. He has to know.”
“I’ll leave,” Anton says. “It’s better for the children to stay here.” He would rather risk himself in the cities, with the bombs falling, than Elisabeth or the little ones. “You aren’t thinking clearly, Elisabeth. You stay in Unterboihingen; I’ll go away.”
She pauses in the act of stuffing her bag. She turns slowly and gazes at him, fighting to swallow her tears. For a moment, he believes they will reconcile now—easily, just as easily as they did the first time. For a moment, he thinks she’ll say, I don’t want you to leave, either. But what choice do they have now? His dangerous secret is exposed. He has made trouble for them all.
“I only wanted to help you and protect you,” he says. The words sound weak, ineffective, even to him.
“You’ve done a remarkable job of it.” She throws the last of her things into her bag and storms out to the sitting room. The children are there, weeping and clutching their knapsacks. “Come, now,” she says, dry-eyed, and leads them down the stairs.
Anton follows them. The stairs rattle beneath his feet, hollow as loss. He knows it’s useless to plead with her, but he can’t simply stand and watch his family go. Elisabeth makes for the lane, and the main road beyond, the one that leads to the train station.
He dodges into the shed and pulls his cornet from the trunk. There are things a man can’t say with his voice, wounds only music can heal. The instrument is cold, and there is no time to warm it; the sound will be sour. But as Elisabeth marches the children toward town, he follows her out into the lane. He stands there while she walks away, while she leads the little ones farther and farther from his side.
Anton lifts the cornet to his lips. As the music follows her retreating back, he hears the lyrics in his head. He feels them in his heart.
Falling in love again, never wanted to. What am I to do? I can’t help it.
It’s the song Elisabeth danced to with her first husband. Marlene Dietrich, “Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß auf Liebe eingestellt.” I can’t help falling in love. The music speaks in his place. It finds the words that evade him; it reaches across the gulf that separates these two wounded hearts and takes hold.
Elisabeth stops in her tracks. She stands for a long time with her back turned to Anton. The children mill and shuffle about her, looking back at their stepfather with pleading eyes while he plays and plays but doesn’t speak. There is a stone-hard resolution in the set of Elisabeth’s shoulders, the straightness of her back. She yields nothing to the music, nothing to memory.
But then, with a shudder so small Anton isn’t certain he has seen it, she turns. She faces him, eyes cast down to the dirt road. One step, then another, slow and deliberate, she walks back to Anton, chin quivering. By the time he plays the final chorus, Elisabeth is standing close enough to touch him, but she will not lift her eyes. He can see her jaw clenching, the muscles behind that round, pretty face hard and resisting.
When the song is done, Anton lowers the horn and Elisabeth lifts her eyes to his. They are so blue, bluer than summer. He has never noticed their depth before, their purity of color. But they have seldom looked at one another this way, lingering and close. In the softening of her look, he can tell Elisabeth sees his remorse, and reads his apology in his own eyes.
Anton waits. He tells himself that whatever she does next, whatever she chooses, he will accept with no further complaint, and no attempt to stop her.
Elisabeth leans forward, so subtly he isn’t quite sure she has moved. But then she creeps closer. She rests her head against his chest, just as Maria does when she is hurt or sad.
Thank you, God. Thank you. Anton wraps his arms around her, his wife.
“This is dangerous.” Her tears soak hot through his shirt.
“I know.”
“But you are my husband. I took a vow. God protect us, you are my husband.”
His heart expands, a sudden, forceful, grateful pressure. What has he done—what has he ever done, in this shameful life, to deserve such a good woman, a wife so brave and strong? She knows in her heart that resistance is right, even if it is dangerous. She is steadfast in her faith, as ever—and he loves her for it.
“I am your husband,” Anton says quietly. He presses his lips to her bowed head. “You are my wife. And I know God will protect us, Elisabeth.”
So I pray.
23
He prays, and the answer comes to him.
Tuesday is Hitler Youth day. Across the nation, our young people meet on the same day of the week, at the same time of the evening. Order, lockstep, we do as we are told. Compliance and uniformity make us great—that’s what they would have us believe.
Monday: Anton is in Kirchheim, a village not exactly near Unterboihingen, teaching the children of that parish to play the organ. No one in Kirchheim wanted organ lessons, but Father Emil has made the arrangements. Emil has insisted, has worked his influence among the Kirchheim priests—and so every last child in the parish will learn to play. It keeps Anton well clear of Unterboihingen until late into the night, every Monday night.
Wednesday: The buses are always slow, so he tells Frau Müller in Wernau that he must shift the time of her daughter’s piano lessons back to five p.m. He can just catch the last bus back to Unterboihingen; he won’t be home until half past seven.
On Thursday, he volunteers at the bakery, lifting pans for Frau Bösch, whom the children have nicknamed Frau Brotmacher—“bread maker.” The Frau has recently hurt her back, wrestling with an ill-tempered milk cow. If she can’t bake, then our town will have little bread, and we will all be the worse for hunger. Who can do this work, if not Anton? Every other man is busy on Thursdays, by Father Emil’s suggestion. If anyone remembers that Anton injured his own back in the Wehrmacht, no one mentions it now. He is careful to walk straight and unbent, to move without the least impediment, lest anyone recall his aching back and comment on the strange arrangement. He fetches and carries for Frau Brotmacher in the heat of her bakery, sweating through his shirt to his vest, almost until midnight. And so Thursday nights are out of the question.
Friday: He adds three lessons to his roster, with Father Emil beating the hedges and alleys of the parish to scare up more students. The families are among the poorest in Unterboihingen; Anton suspects Father Emil is paying their fees himself, but he won’t shame the parents by asking, nor will he expose Emil to scandal. He accepts the situation for what it is, what he needs it to be: tight commitments that can’t be broken, every Friday until la
te in the evening.
Every Saturday, he minds the children of the Forst family—eight dirty, ill-behaved brawlers. Both Herr and Frau Forst must work now: he at the train yard, she at the distribution center, sorting our weekly rations. No one is left to care for their brood. Who can do this task, save Anton? No one; there is no one else who can spare the time. That’s what he tells the village, and the village comes to believe it. A dozen different people might have taken to minding the Forst children on Saturdays. Frau Hertz, or Frau Bösch, even with her bad back—Elisabeth herself might have done it, and her stern discipline would have done the Forsts a world of good. But that is not the point. That is not a part of this quiet, careful design.
When his schedule is impossibly full, Anton goes to Möbelbauer, hat in hand.
“It has been such a busy winter for us all,” he says to Franke, smiling his pleasant smile, the one that can put anyone at ease, can convince anyone that Anton Starzmann is trustworthy, your dearest friend. “I’m so disappointed, because I’ve been looking forward to leading the Hitler Youth program since you first told me about it. But, well . . . as you can see . . .” He passes a paper to Möbelbauer: his impossibly tight schedule, scrawled and annotated, marked up, crossed out and rewritten, as if he has made an honest attempt to rearrange his life. As if he tried every conceivable way to accommodate the Führer’s plans.
“I don’t see the problem,” Möbelbauer says. “Your Tuesday evenings are free. It’s perfect; Tuesday is Hitler Youth night.”
“It would be youth night, if you only want Unterboihingen to participate in the usual program. If you don’t aspire to anything greater.”
Möbelbauer squints up at him. What is the ex-friar talking about?
“I thought, friend—wouldn’t it be something truly special if we were to give a real gift to the Führer?”
Möbelbauer waits, pursing his lips below his truncated mustache. Confused and wary, his eyes shift from Anton’s smile to the schedule in his hand.
The Ragged Edge of Night Page 20
