He sees Detlef Pohl before the man sees him. Pohl is carrying a cane this time—he is fond of adding elements to his various disguises, not that any message carriers rely much on disguise. Pohl walks with the dignity of a king in a procession. He pauses now and then to gaze in the windows of shops; he checks his pocket watch with an unhurried air, then tucks it away again. When they pass on the sidewalk, Anton and Pohl tip their hats, as polite strangers do. The folded paper falls from Anton’s other hand; the tip of Pohl’s cane comes down, pinning the message to the pavement.
“A lovely Sunday,” Pohl says.
“It would be lovelier if my wife didn’t want to skin me alive.”
Pohl’s mouth tightens. Too late, Anton remembers what the man said once, back in Kirchheim: Don’t tell me if you have a family.
His cheeks burn. It was a careless mistake. “I should be on my way.”
But as he turns to go, Herr Pohl says quietly, as if he can’t help it—as if it burdens his spirit, “A shame about Egerland.”
Anton glances back. “What has happened? I haven’t heard the news. Our town is so small, you know—we don’t always hear what happens in the world beyond.” But we heard about the students, arrested for contact with the founders of the White Rose. That fear still hangs over Anton, and over Elisabeth, too.
“The Czechs have pushed back,” Pohl says. “A rebel faction. They won’t last long; the Reich will lay into them soon enough. But for now, they’ve expelled at least a hundred German families—maybe more.”
“That is a shame,” Anton says.
Pohl lifts a single brow. “All those people, cast out of their homes. Women and children, wandering the countryside, homeless, hungry. I hear they’ve taken to sleeping in barns—when they can find them—and eating weeds. Like cattle.”
The picture of tragedy resolves before Anton’s mind, grim and clear. Now he says with real feeling, “How terrible. Can anything be done to help them?”
“They need homes, the poor souls—at least until their land is reclaimed and they can return to Egerland. Assuming the Czechs leave something for the exiles to return to, that is . . . something worth calling home. I have heard there is some relief effort planned, but it amounts to transporting the homeless here, to the Württemberg countryside, and turning them loose again.”
“Not much of a plan.”
“No, not much. But we don’t expect better from those at the helm, do we?” Pohl shifts his cane, pulling the message closer. When Anton has gone, he will bend and pick it up. He will make his way to the next contact; the words will flow, a trickle, a quiet stream. Pohl lifts his hat again. “I had best be going.”
“And I.”
“Be safe, mein Herr.”
By the time Anton finally reaches home, long after sunset, a spring drizzle has set in, soaking his coat and chilling him to the core. But rain and hours have cooled Elisabeth’s anger. She looks up from the stove as he enters, and when he bends to kiss her cheek, she doesn’t pull away. Whatever she is cooking smells delicious: savory, yet lightened with a pinch of the cinnamon she guards with such jealous attention. The children have gone to bed.
Anton takes the sewing catalogs from inside his coat. He stacks them on the table, neatly, the way Elisabeth likes.
“How did Communion go?”
Faintly, Elisabeth smiles. “Maria did well. She took the matter seriously, thank the Lord. She treated the ceremony with reverence. You would have been proud of her, if you’d seen it.”
“I am always proud of my Maria.” He hangs his wet coat on a hook beside the door, then pages through one of the catalogs. “She can cut these up to her heart’s content.”
“She’ll like that. Sit down; I’ve reheated the stew. When I noticed the rain, I thought you’d be terribly cold by the time you came home.”
The stew is delicious, and the cinnamon has been added just for him—Anton feels certain of that. Between bites, he says, “I regret missing Maria’s big day. If it had been any other work, you know I would have let it rest until Monday.”
“I know.” She sighs, ever weary, and sinks onto the chair closest to Anton. “I’m glad Maria wasn’t hurt by your not being there.”
“I’m sorry you were hurt, though. It wasn’t an easy decision to make.”
For a moment, she blinks down at the table in silence. “I worry, Anton—how often will you choose this work over your family? Where will you draw the line? When will we be more important than this?”
How can he make her understand? He can’t disentangle his commitment to the resistance from his commitment to the family. They are two edifices in his heart, each built from the same stone. He fights because he loves his family, because he needs to believe that they will see better days. There is nothing he can say, where the children might hear. He can only hold her hand, briefly—all she will permit—and pat her shoulder, a silent promise of unity.
“I heard news from Egerland while I was away. The Czechs have retaken the place. They’ve turned all the Germans they could find out of their homes. So many have been displaced—women, children—it turns my stomach to think of it.”
Elisabeth’s face lengthens with pity. “Those poor people. We have so little here, in the country, but imagine being cast out from your home—imagine having nothing.”
“The NSDAP plans to bring the refugees here, you know.”
“What, to Unterboihingen?”
“Not precisely. They’re being carried by train to Württemberg.”
“And then?”
Anton shrugs. “Then left to fend for themselves again, I suppose—left to scratch out some bare existence in the fields and forests.”
“How can the Party do such a thing? It isn’t as if these refugees are impure.” She weights that word with all the scorn it deserves. Only Party wolves could think any person impure—and those like Bruno Franke, who quiver with a base eagerness to lick Hitler’s jowls. “They are Germans, full citizens, with every right to the Reich’s protection, according to the Reich’s own decrees. It disgusts me, how anyone can support these devils—even now, when they plan to drop German mothers and children like trash on a refuse heap. I feel ill.”
“I suppose they justify it—the Party and their supporters—by saying, ‘We’re at war now. Where will we find the money to care for refugees?’”
“Money shouldn’t matter. It’s the right thing to do, to care for them. And so it should be done, no matter the cost, no matter who must make the sacrifice.”
He takes her hand again. “When, mein Schatz, has this regime done what is right?”
“Never.” Tears spring to her eyes. She turns her face, ashamed, and tugs her hand free from Anton’s grip. She wipes her eyes before the tears may fall. “Never, Anton; from the start, they have done only evil. And we have gone along with it—all of us, the whole country. We could have stopped them long ago, but we didn’t. We hid our faces behind our hands. We told ourselves, ‘This won’t continue. It won’t be allowed. Someone will stop them; someone must. The Reichstag, or an assassin, or the Tommies. Or God Himself. It won’t be allowed to continue.’ But it has continued, and now it seems there is no end in sight. We can’t go back to the time when we might have stopped this all; we let that chance pass us by. What does that make us? What will God think, when we stand before His judgment?”
There is nothing Anton can say, no comfort he can offer. The chance has passed; a hundred chances more lie in the dust behind us. The miles we might have marched in protest, the votes we might have cast. The mercy we might have shown but withheld, fearful of what our neighbors would think. There is nothing left for any of us but to stand firm on what little ground remains. To say to the Party, You have gone far enough already. Now you will go no further. We will stand, and we will know that we’ll be ground beneath their heels. We’ll be like grains to a millstone. But until the moment when we fall, we will stand.
Elisabeth looks up to the cracked plaster ceiling. Her eyes are drawn
, as if by instinct—as if by hope—to the tiny space above, the empty attic she cannot see. But she knows it’s there.
“Surely our attic is far too small,” Anton says quietly. “This house is hardly bigger than a tinderbox. There can’t be enough space above our heads for a man to stand upright. What kind of life would it be, crawling about on all fours?”
“It would be life.” He can hear his wife’s unshed tears wavering in her voice.
“And Elisabeth . . . if we were found out, the Schutzstaffel would take our children. You know they would.” They would make us watch while they shot our sons, our brave little daughter. They would put your hand on the rifle and force you to pull the trigger.
“I know,” Elisabeth says. “I won’t do it, Anton—I won’t hide anyone from the Party. I would never risk the children. But it will haunt me for the rest of my life, the fact that I didn’t do it. I never tried.” A new thought occurs to her. She sits up straight in her chair, and now all traces of tears have gone. “But the Egerlanders. The refugees. You’ve said they’ll be left here in Württemberg. We must take them in, if we can’t take Jews or Gypsies or Poles.”
He considers. Slowly, he mulls it over. “Can it displease the Party at all? I want to believe they would permit it, but what if they feel we’ve crossed them somehow—gone against their designs?”
“You cross them every day, as far as I can tell.”
“But I do this in secret. We could never hide it, Elisabeth, if we brought refugees into our home.”
“What can anyone say about it? What protest can they possibly raise? Those Egerlanders are our fellow Germans; we wouldn’t be aiding any of the impure.”
“If we take in the Egerlanders, we’ll draw attention to Unterboihingen.” No longer invisible. We will shine like a torch from the night sky.
Elisabeth considers for a long moment, brushing her lips with her fingertips, gazing up past the ceiling, to the space she cannot see. “You’re right; it will draw every eye in Germany to Unterboihingen. And that’s why we must gain the whole town’s approval. Everyone must agree, or none of us can do it at all.”
“I meant to pay a visit to Father Emil, first thing in the morning. I want to apologize for missing Maria’s Communion. Perhaps I’ll take the matter to him.”
“I wish you would. If anyone can convince our town to help those refugees, it’s Father Emil.”
This time, when Anton takes her hand, she allows him to hold it a little longer.
“You deserve a better husband,” he says, “one who is on hand whenever you need him. Whenever you want him near.”
Elisabeth makes no reply, except to squeeze his fingers. But in her touch, he feels a marginal warming, a thaw in her habitual chill.
27
Father Emil has called a meeting, and St. Kolumban is full to groaning. Every man and woman who is well enough to leave home has come to the church. The nave is loud with restless chatter, and although the arches of the ceiling soar high above their heads, the air is close with the breath and heat of so many people.
Holding to Anton’s arm, Elisabeth tightens her grip in surprise as they enter. “I never expected so many people would come to this meeting.”
“You said yourself,” Anton replies, “Father Emil can move hearts.”
She glances around uneasily. Anton can see it, too—the agitation in men’s gestures, the loudness of their voices, the emphatic shaking of women’s heads. Father Emil’s work is cut out for him.
“They seem reluctant,” Elisabeth says quietly as Anton leads her to a front pew.
“Some undoubtedly are. But keep faith, my darling. Let’s give the father a chance to work his miracles before we despair.”
They settle beside Frau Hertz just as Emil emerges from behind the rood screen. He steps to his lectern, and a hush falls across the nave. Villagers find their seats; there is a murmur and rustle like wind through a forest.
“My friends and neighbors, my brothers and sisters,” Emil begins, smiling, “I am so gratified to see all of you here this evening. I know it’s unusual, to assemble this way, but we find ourselves in unusual circumstances—or about to be touched by unusual circumstances, I should say.”
A mutter rises again from the nave, with a distinct note of protest. But it dies back just as quickly. Someone among the pews hisses, “Let the father speak before you judge!”
“Many of you have already heard the dreadful news from Egerland,” Emil resumes. “It’s true, I’m sorry to say: the Czechs have taken over there, and pushed German families from their homes. We’ve good reason to believe that the refugees will be redistributed to Württemberg.
“A member of our flock”—Father Emil does not look at Anton or Elisabeth—“suggested that we might open our homes to those in need, and welcome the Egerlanders among us. I’ve brought you here tonight with the hope that we might seek consensus, and act as one body in this matter.”
Across the aisle, Bruno Franke rises to his feet. It’s all Anton can do to keep a scowl from his face as he listens to the man speak—listens to him bellow.
“It’s a terrible idea. We oughtn’t even to think of it.”
Cowering beside her husband, Frau Franke keeps her eyes fixed to the floor. She is a small woman, wrapped in a dark woolen shawl, sober-faced and pale. When a woman to her left murmurs something close to her ear, Frau Franke quivers as if the very proximity of another woman burns her.
The poor thing, Anton thinks. What must her life be like, shackled to the town gauleiter? Does she know how her husband carries on with the wives and unmarried girls of the village?
One of the Kopp brothers stands, too. “Come, now, Herr Franke. You aren’t suggesting we turn away women and children in need?”
Anton recognizes many of the voices raised in support—the Abts and Schneiders, the baker and her two red-cheeked daughters.
But someone else shouts, “Bruno is right. It’s a bad idea—dangerous!”
Anton burns to crane his neck, to find out who called out such folly. But he can’t draw attention to himself with the gauleiter so near. He forces himself to remain casually in his place, eyes on the priest at his lectern.
Emil raises his hands until silence has been restored. But Bruno Franke remains standing.
“Herr Franke,” the priest says, “please tell us more. If we know why, exactly, you are concerned, then perhaps—”
Möbelbauer cuts Emil off with an impatient jerk of his head. “We don’t need more mouths to feed here in Unterboihingen. If we let in a great herd of strays, they’ll eat us out of our homes.”
“Strays?” Frau Abt cries. “For Heaven’s sake, those are little children you speak of, not dogs!”
The woman seated near the Frankes adds, “Show some humanity, Bruno.” When she elbows Frau Franke, the Frau only huddles deeper into her shawl.
Janz Essert lifts his hand. “Franke has the right of it. We’ve kept ourselves out of trouble here in this town. Refugees will only complicate our lives. Who needs the bother?”
A murmur of disapproval rises like a flood. Someone shouts over the noise, “We can’t turn away people in need!”
Now more are on their feet, voicing their support of Möbelbauer—men and women alike, six, seven. Then ten, then a dozen. Anton never dreamed the gauleiter had so many admirers. Frantically, he takes stock, trying to impress their faces and names upon his memory. His life might depend, one day, on staying on the right side of Bruno Franke’s friends.
Franke says, “Listen, listen, all of you. Let us talk sense. I’m not a heartless fiend”—Elisabeth’s legs twitch, and Anton fears she may leap up to confront the man—“but consider our situation. We’ve just enough, among all our little farms and shops, to keep ourselves in good health and good cheer. If we open our homes to these Egerlanders, every one of us will be stretched too thin. There will no longer be enough surplus for trading. We’ll all be back to living on ration stamps and nothing else. Is that really the life you want
to lead?”
Elisabeth springs up before Anton can restrain her. She faces Franke across the aisle, shivering with anger and disgust. “All of Germany has tightened its belt,” she says. “We can do the same. We’ve had an easy go of the war, here in Unterboihingen. Now it’s time we share our good luck with those less fortunate than we.”
The roar of assent is gratifying; it raises a prickle of triumph along Anton’s spine.
Franke has nothing for Elisabeth but a twisted sneer. “You would take food from your own children’s mouths to feed strangers?”
There is no hesitation in her reply. “I would rather send my children to bed hungry than teach them to harden their hearts. What good is a comfortable life if we don’t know the meaning of love or mercy?”
“Hear!” someone shouts in admiration. Applause ripples around the nave.
But those who have stood in support of Bruno Franke haven’t backed down yet.
“We don’t even know what kind of people these Egerlanders are,” Janz says.
The man standing beside him—Hofer Voigt—nods eagerly. “That’s right. They’re strangers to us; who can say what they intend?”
“What they intend?” Elisabeth cries. “Herr Voigt, how can you say such things? They are homeless! You make it sound as if they’ve had any choice in this matter—as if they were planning an invasion!”
“And as for what kind of people they are,” says another Kopp, “they’re Germans. What more do you need to know?”
“Plenty of unsavory types have called themselves German.” Franke casts a sly look around the church, the muttering crowd. “Plenty of impure types. Just because they claim to be German, that doesn’t make it so.”
“That’s the truth,” Hofer says. “Listen well, all of you. How can we be sure these Egerlanders wouldn’t bring Jews or Gypsy rats among us?”
The Ragged Edge of Night Page 23
