The Ragged Edge of Night

by Olivia Hawker

  “We don’t exactly stand out here in Unterboihingen,” Anton says. “Who ever gives us a second thought? Who minds any of us—you included, although you’re a genius furniture maker? Consider for a moment all the talent we have here, concentrated in this town. All the great things we can do—we alone can do. All the ways we can honor the Führer with our gifts.”

  “I don’t know what you’re getting at,” Möbelbauer says shortly.

  “Herr Franke, what would you do—who would you be, how high could you rise—if a man of your quality, with your talents and ambitions, were actually recognized by those who matter? Those with power. Where do you see yourself? There is no limit, as far as I can tell. A good, clear-headed, loyal Party man like yourself . . . You’re everything the NSDAP wants, everything they look for in an officer or a politician. All you lack is visibility. And who can expect visibility in Unterboihingen?”

  Möbelbauer stares at Anton openly now, his hunger conspicuous. The force of the man’s craving, the power it has over him, nearly makes Anton step back and throw up his hands in defense. As Father Emil has said, a man ruled by ambition is dangerous. All Möbelbauer wants in this world is power—to be recognized, to be feared. Why else has he set himself up as gauleiter, if not to work his way ever closer to the source of power? He says, “Go on.”

  “Here is what I propose. Here is how you stand above the crowd. The Führer loves music; we all know that. And I am a music teacher. What’s more, I have instruments—I saved them from my old school in Munich. Wouldn’t it be a shame to throw away such an opportunity, such a resource? How many other towns have marching bands dedicated to the glory of our Führer? Forget the little villages—how many cities have bands to play for our leader? None—that’s how many. We could have Hitler Youth meetings, like all the other towns and cities, like everyone across the nation. Or we could create something new. Something no one has done before.”

  Möbelbauer’s eyes widen. Now, at last, he sees the great vision.

  Anton presses his advantage. “Think of it: good, strong, German songs, celebrating the old culture, the old ways. Through music, we can teach our youth what it means to be real Germans. What better tool of culture? What better way to honor the Führer and celebrate everything he has done to elevate us? Music is his greatest love. With a youth band, Unterboihingen would certainly stand out. And any fellow who can say, ‘This band, this special salute to the Führer—I made it happen,’ well, the Party would notice a man like that. You can be certain.”

  Slowly, thoughtfully, Möbelbauer nods. Anton can see it: the gauleiter is ravenous for recognition.

  “But,” Anton says, weighting his voice with regret, “as you can see, the only time I can manage to lead a band is Tuesday evenings. Hitler Youth night. You could find someone else to lead the club, I suppose . . .”

  “But then none of the boys could join your band.”

  “That’s so. What a quandary; what a difficulty. I suppose we’ll have to decide whether it’s better for us to make ourselves known to the Führer, or stick with the tried and true.”

  Möbelbauer passes the schedule back to Anton. “You say you have the instruments already?”

  “I have everything I need.”

  “Why don’t we give it a try, Herr Starzmann, and see where it gets us?”

  Anton smiles easily. Herr Starzmann is every man’s friend. He reaches out to shake Möbelbauer’s hand, and it’s all he can do not to tighten his fist and crush those greedy bones. “I’m glad you’re agreed.”

  24

  When Anton left the cottage for this first afternoon with the band, Elisabeth pressed a lunch into his hands, wrapped in one of her coveted pieces of waxed paper. She said almost nothing to him in words. Only, “When shall I expect you home?” and, “Viel Glück,” but the lunch spoke on her behalf, a volume of gratitude and worry she couldn’t bring herself to express. The packet is heavy in his hands, so heavy he wonders how he can ever hope to eat it all before reaching the Gymnasium, the secondary school. When he unwraps the paper, he finds a thick slab of liver, seasoned with pickled onions and yellow mustard, between two skimpy slices of bread. Stacked neatly atop the sandwich, there lies an orderly arrangement of dried apples, still laced on their oven-black string.

  He examines the apples as he walks toward the school, purely for a distraction from his rioting nerves. The apples are soft and going softer by the moment; they have absorbed some of the sandwich’s moisture. When he bites into one, he can taste the tang of onions alongside the bitterness of curing smoke, the fumes from the sulfur candle with which Elisabeth has preserved the fruit. But after he chews a few times, the apple’s natural sweetness comes through. The overall effect is not unpleasant. He prefers the apples to the sandwich; he has never shared Elisabeth’s fondness for liver and onions.

  His stomach is so tight with anxiety that he considers tossing the sandwich into some ditch or hedge, leaving it for the birds to peck. But he discards the thought almost as soon as it occurs. With such deprivation as we now face, it would be an unthinkable waste, almost a sin. Besides, he has no desire to throw away his wife’s gesture of affection. When he’d told Elisabeth about the band and his newly hectic schedule, she had understood at once. She said little then, as this afternoon—but for days after, she carried herself with a kind of grim confidence, a straightness and coolness that said she approved, that she, too, resisted. There were times when she smiled at Anton or touched his arm with a gentle warmth that surprised him. He can feel her touch now, an unseen hand on his shoulder, guiding him. He has no great love for liver and onions, but Elisabeth is another matter. He eats his lunch with all the steadiness he can summon.

  He is licking mustard from his fingers when he reaches the school. Like nearly everything in Unterboihingen, the building seems plucked from another era. Its high-peaked roof is outlined in dark timbers. Ivy has climbed the white walls and been pulled away, leaving brown scars crisscrossing the stucco. And more vines have grown up again; one corner of the school is curtained in green, a spot of cheerful color in the January gray. Lessons have ended for the day; he had expected to find the schoolyard teeming with children, but it is empty, save for one slender figure in a high-necked charcoal dress.

  When the teacher catches sight of Anton, she hurries down the path to the road. He removes his top hat before taking her chilly hand. She is young—early twenties, no older than Anton was when he first went to St. Josefsheim.

  “Herr Starzmann,” she says, “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you. I’m Fräulein Weber—Christine.” She’s a pretty woman, tall and blue-eyed, with glossy chestnut hair and painted lips. Her pale cheeks are flushed from the winter’s cold.

  “I’m glad to be here,” Anton says, not at all sure he is. His stomach is churning on the liver. It has been three years since he has entered a classroom, since he has stood in front of so many children as their teacher. Does he still remember how to do it?

  Christine leads him toward the school. She keeps her eyes on the path as they walk and keeps her voice low, but she doesn’t hesitate to speak. “I have prayed, night after night, that our town—our children—would be spared.” No need to specify. From lessons this earnest young teacher would rather her pupils never learn. From doctrines of purity and perfection. From the pledges of fealty to Our Leader, repeated week after week, every Tuesday night, with an arm flung out in salute. If you force a man—or a boy—to recite words often enough, sooner or later he will come to believe what he says. “When I learned what Bruno Franke intended, I was outraged.” The way she says the name, with a growl of disgust, makes Anton believe that she, too, has been the recipient of Möbelbauer’s lust, his foul propositions. Of course she has; look at her. Lovely, young, and single, this teacher is an apple too tempting for Möbelbauer to leave on the bough. Anton can only hope she hasn’t suffered overmuch.

  “I was furious with Herr Franke, too,” Anton says. I am furious still.

  She stops out
side the door, beside the spray of ivy. The green leaves set off her red hair with luminous intensity; for a moment, Christine shines at him, a youthful beacon of hope. “But there’s no need for either of us to be angry now. You’ve come to save our children from that fate.”

  He holds the hat against his chest, pressing it to his fluttering heart. “If I manage to save anyone, Fräulein, it will be by God’s grace.”

  From the moment she opens the school’s front door, Anton can tell where the children have gone. Conversation bubbles out into the foyer from a classroom; laughter hangs in the air, the music of children forgetting to be afraid. They have lingered inside the schoolhouse rather than running home. They have waited there for Anton.

  “That room, there,” Christine says, gesturing to the open door, “will be yours entirely, this time every Tuesday, for as long as you need it.”

  “It’s very generous. I’m humbled.”

  “Think nothing of it, mein Herr. We are all too happy to oblige.”

  “The instruments . . . ?”

  “The Kopp brothers brought them over on the back of their truck, just at the start of the lunch hour. You’ll find them all inside the classroom.”

  She grins at him suddenly, buoyant with an expectation that is almost childish. He thinks, Where did this teacher grow up? Munich, Stuttgart? Christine is young enough that she couldn’t have escaped mandatory participation in the youth programs when she was a schoolgirl. It makes his jaw clench, to think of this bright, hopeful young woman—any young woman—pressed into the Bund Deutsche Mädel, the League of German Girls. In the BDM, they teach our girls to sing “The Flag on High.” They teach our girls to work the farms—Blut und Boden, soil and blood. They teach our girls, above all else, to guard against racial shame. To love a man insufficiently German, to bring forth a child with tainted blood, is a crime worse than murder. He can only thank God such teachings didn’t stick in the heart of this brave young woman.

  “Thank you, Christine,” Anton says.

  “Call if you need me. I’ll be out here in the foyer; I intend to listen to the music.”

  “Don’t expect too much, this first day.”

  Laughter and horseplay end abruptly when Anton enters the room. There is a hasty rustle, a scrambling for seats—the children have pushed their wooden double desks into a half circle. Two dozen eager faces turn toward him; some of the younger ones have come, he sees, from the other schoolhouse down the road, the one Maria used to escape in favor of butchering magazines. The Kopp brothers have deposited the trunks at the head of the classroom, just below the blackboard. A remnant of the day’s lesson still shows on the board, a sentence partially erased. The smell of the place leaps to the forefront of Anton’s awareness. Ink, the old wood of well-used desks, chalk dust, and a faint trace of mildew from the pages of aging books. The scents are familiar to him, all of them, as natural as if he’d never left his first classroom behind.

  Al and Paul are there among the other children, elbowing each other, glowing with pride, for it is their stepfather who has caused so much excitement. This is almost as good as his story about jumping from the airplane.

  Albert—twelve years old. In a few short years, he’ll be as old as the biggest boys in the classroom, and they are old enough to be conscripted, sent away to fight and die, fodder for the Führer’s machine. Most of the older boys would have been sent already, if they’d been made to join Hitler Youth. That program has degenerated into a convenient Wehrmacht reserve, nothing more.

  Well, that’s why I’m here, isn’t it? Even with my band, I can’t prevent these boys from being taken off to war if their names are drawn. I can’t stop their being forced to fight and kill. Nor can I stop them from dying. But I can stop their hearts from turning. I can keep them anchored to love and righteousness. That much I can do.

  Anton turns the top hat over in his hands. He sets it on the teacher’s desk—or tries to. He has misjudged the distance, and it falls to the ground. Amid a ripple of nervous, testing laughter, he retrieves it, sets it firmly in place, and then rocks on his heels, looking out at his pupils. Uncertain what to say.

  One of the boys calls out eagerly, “Mein Herr, are you going to teach us how to play?”

  Anton chuckles. “God willing.” The boys and girls shuffle their feet; they murmur with excitement.

  Where best to begin? He opens the nearest trunk and picks up the first instrument to hand. He holds it up so all the children may see. “This is a cornet. Pretty, isn’t it? It can play the highest notes of all the brass—that is, the kind of instruments you must buzz your lips to play.” He demonstrates, pressing his lips together and letting out a rasping vibration. The children laugh. “I’ll pass it around, so you all may get a feel for it. No one try to play it—not yet. None of us wants to go home with a headache.” More laughter.

  The cornet begins to make its rounds. The children test its weight in their hands, imagine what they must look like holding it, capable and proud. Anton retrieves the next instrument from his trunk. “French horn. Look at the curves, and see how the keys are different from the keys on top of the cornet. This one sounds mellow and sweet.”

  He names each instrument and explains its role, what purpose it will serve in their band. The baritone horn, the trombone with its long slide—he must assemble that one while the children watch. Clarinet and piccolo, oboe and flute, the bright cymbals that flash when he raises them. The children cringe with hands over ears, expecting him to crash them together, but Anton only laughs and passes a single cymbal around the room.

  When he has shown them every instrument, he says, “Now you each may try the ones you like best, so we can learn what suits you. I don’t have enough instruments for everyone, so even when you’ve made your choice, most of you must share. I’ll have your teacher, Fräulein Weber, help me make a schedule. How does that sound? Stand up now, and arrange yourselves in order of height.” The children of St. Josefsheim used to like that method of sorting. Brother Nazarius seldom picked them in order, from tallest to shortest. Sometimes he would go the other way, and sometimes he would work from the middle out, so everyone had a chance to be first.

  They begin only with mouthpieces. Anton pulls the metal cups from each brass instrument; the children take turns buzzing, and the room fills with a chorus of duck quacks. The students are nearly beside themselves with laughter, the sound is so ridiculous—but Anton notes how quickly they are learning. Soon enough, he fixes the mouthpieces back onto brass bodies. The children play—or try to play; the discordant honks and feeble squeals would be enough make them laugh all over again, but a serious air has fallen over the classroom. They are doing their earnest best to learn, every one of them. And this is like nothing they’ve ever done before. Rapt in the development of this new skill—what will be a new skill, with practice—they are committed, serious, as children seldom are. Those who are not playing encourage the others. They applaud each other’s first attempts at C and A and G. A sense of cooperation forms, trust and camaraderie forming fresh new buds. Someday, those buds will open, flowering into reliance and unity, the magical forces that bind a music group together.

  Two hours of lessons fly by. While Christine Weber checks off names on her list, Anton sends half the children home with an instrument—all except those who will be his drummers. They must obtain their parents’ permission to learn percussion. Anton won’t surprise the parents of Unterboihingen with cymbals or his little snare drum. He would never be so cruel; the trumpets and piccolos will be torment enough.

  “Next week,” he tells them, “each of you must be able to play all the notes I’ve shown you, so practice well, and be sure you meet up with your partners midweek to trade the instruments. Those of you who have the instruments first: it will be your responsibility to remind your friends how to play the correct notes. Drummers, you will practice on your knees until your parents agree to let you keep the drums.” He shows them how, tapping out a paradiddle until the whole classroom
takes it up, even those who haven’t been assigned to percussion.

  Anton strolls home in the blue twilight with Al and Paul at his side. Paul carries the cornet, which the boys will share; he can’t resist squawking out a few notes now and again, and every time he does it, a rabbit bolts from the road’s verge or a flock of partridges clatters into the air. Anton can scarcely recall feeling so satisfied. His heart brims over with a rich, warm sense of accomplishment—and the certainty that he has laid the foundation for something miraculous, something he will build. He had expected it would only bring him pain, to stand at the head of a classroom again. But he needn’t have feared. In a world steeped in sorrow, he has found a small portion of joy. It’s worth more than gold, in times like these.

  When they reach their home, Elisabeth comes down the stairs to meet them. Anton pauses in the yard while the boys run ahead, clamoring to show their mother the cornet. She has seen it before, but never in their hands. Anton watches her descend from the cottage in a wash of pale moonlight. At first, he thinks, How lovely she looks, with that silver glow along her crown, sparkling in her dark hair. She is even prettier than Christine Weber. But as Elisabeth draws closer, he sees that her eyes are tight, her mouth thin and troubled. She barely pauses to admire the cornet. Then she lays a hand on Paul’s head, halting his chatter. “Go inside, boys. Supper is waiting.”

  The boys clatter and bump up the stairs, jostling and laughing. Paul plays a final squeal on the instrument before he disappears inside.

  In the silence that remains, Elisabeth looks soberly at Anton. Something is terribly wrong.

  “What is it? Has something happened to Maria? Is she sick?”

  “No, Maria is perfectly well. It’s nothing like that, nothing of that sort.” She glances up the stairs, to be sure the door to their home is well shut and little ears can’t hear. “I’ve heard the news this evening, while you were at the school. Frau Hertz came over and told me.” For one wild moment, still riding on his wave of hope, he thinks the Red Orchestra has finally played its deadly chord, and someone, the chosen assassin, has made his move against Hitler. But if that were so—if they were liberated, as suddenly as that, Elisabeth would never look so grim.