by Bodie Thoene
“They said . . . by steamship . . . but if they left with their luggage, I would have seen them,” she protested meekly. “Please. I have told you all I know.”
“Not all.” Hess leaned down very close to her face until the gray of his blind eye was all she could see. “Where is my money?” he growled. “My seventy-five marks!”
She pointed to her handbag. “There! In there! Take it and go! Please go! And do not hurt me!”
Hess smiled. His soulless eyes mocked her terror as he pressed the steel of the pistol hard and steady against the side of her neck.
A sudden movement of his wrist was all Hess needed to slam the gun barrel into her head. Her eyes rolled back in unconsciousness. He dumped out her handbag and took back the cash he had given her; then he slipped out of the building without being seen.
***
Wolf buttoned his shirt slowly as he spoke to Lucy in a patronizing singsong voice. He acted as though nothing had happened since she left him in Vienna. As though nothing at all had just happened in this garret room—no violence, no brutality.
“You are not hurt,” he said lightly. “On the farm we breed back mares to stallions three days after they give birth.” He managed a short laugh. “Probably you will be pregnant again from our little passion here.”
Lucy did not reply. She lay very still beneath the red-spattered sheet. Her eyes were dull as she stared at the window. The baby nursed frantically. His breath trembled against her breast. Only now as she absently stroked his head was he quiet.
Wolf looked down at his clothes. Flecks of blood covered him. The morning light broke through a layer of clouds and streamed across the wood-plank floor covered with wreckage from Wolf’s rage. “You are not going anywhere,” he muttered, “until I take you.”
“Where?” Her voice was barely audible.
“Back home. To the Reich. You would like to go home, wouldn’t you?”
She did not reply.
Wolf’s tone was still smooth. “There are questions you must answer, you see. People who want to know . . .” He waited as if she would respond to his words. “Your friend, Otto Wattenbarger . . .”
“I do not know.” And then she remembered it was Otto Wattenbarger who had hidden Peter Wallich’s family in Vienna. A Gestapo agent himself, Otto had helped many political prisoners escape or die without talking. Otto had been arrested the night Peter and his mother had fled to Frau Singer’s.
“You must remember him, eh? Maybe you were working together? Maybe you were in on the entire resistance plot in Vienna?”
“Oh, Wolf,” she said wearily. “Oh . . .”
“You would like me to think you are too stupid and cow-like to be involved in such things. But you left Vienna with the family of Michael Wallich. Remember the Wallich case? Of course you do. Because you must be one of them as well. We would have had a confession from Otto, but he chose to launch himself out into eternity. Dead as a post in his cell. Tragic. And with so much he might have told us about the operation in Vienna.” He put on his raincoat to cover the stains of her blood. “And so, my dear, I am afraid we will have to get our information from you.”
“Let me sleep, Wolf. Please.” She closed her eyes as tears crept from the corners.
“Yes. You are not going anywhere.” She could hear his smile. “I have phone calls to make. But I will be back. And then you will come with me. You and the baby. A baby needs its mother—until someone else can be found to replace the nourishment.”
Wolf was right. He had made certain she was too weak at this moment to move, too abused to do more than lie here until she could recover. By then, no doubt, he would be back. And then he would take her child. He would arrest her and give her to men who could, and would, match his own brutality. “By the way, I checked. The door can be locked from the outside. And I have both keys now. Just in case.”
What was the use? What was left for her now? He was right. It had all been for nothing.
He stood over her bed and leaned close to her. “This morning’s tryst may well be your last experience with physical pleasure. I hope it was unforgettable for you, dear Lucy.”
With that, he slipped out of the room and locked the door from the outside, just to make certain she would still be here when he returned.
Lucy slept for what seemed like hours, yet when she opened her eyes the shadows on the rooftop were unchanged. It was as though the sun had not moved, and no time at all had passed.
The bells of Marienkirche boomed out over the city. Lucy lay still and counted the tolling hours. Four . . . five . . . six . . . seven . . . eight . . . And then silence.
Could this be? Only eight o’clock? Wolf had just left the flat a few minutes before! His footsteps, no doubt, still echoed against the pavement of Heilige Geist Strasse!
Lucy sat up slowly, as if to test her fragile strength. She felt as though she had been asleep for days, as if the terror Wolf had brought into this room had happened days before.
She frowned, wondering if perhaps it really had been days ago that he had come to her. Perhaps something had happened to him, and he had not been able to come back, she thought. Had she slept so long? Locked in some delirium of grief and pain, had days instead of minutes passed? Had she cared for her baby without knowing what she was doing?
She touched his forehead. He was sleeping a deep, contented sleep. His diaper was dry. And yet the blood—her blood—on the sheets was bright and fresh! She touched her nose. It was still bleeding slightly from Wolf’s blows. Not broken, but tender and bruised, as was her right cheek.
Lucy ran her hands over her arms. The welts from Wolf’s belt were bright red, new! There were marks made by his fingers as he had held her down.
She swung her legs around and stood, gripping the iron bed for support. Her legs still trembled and her mind reeled, sending the room and the bright square of the window spinning until she sat down on the edge of the bed again.
She turned her head to the silver crucifix above the bed. “What day is this?” she asked aloud. “How long have I been sleeping?” With that, she stood once again, more slowly this time. The world did not spin. She kept her eyes fixed on the cross as she walked toward it and put her hand out to touch it. “You saw what he did.” She moaned and began to weep silently. “Help me. Please . . .”
Taking the crucifix down from the nail, she clutched it to her. Wrapping herself in a sheet, she walked to the door and tried the knob. Locked! From the outside! Wolf had not returned. Only minutes had passed since he had left her! How much time did she have before he returned? And how could she get out?
Behind her, through the partially open window, she heard the cooing of a pigeon. She turned to watch as the bird walked along the ridgeline of the adjoining roof. Lucy frowned as she stared hard at it. She had never really looked at the roof before now. Always her eyes had swept up to the blue sky or the starlit night above the buildings.
But this was the only way.
Three brick chimneys protruded from the slate shingles, marking the division of houses. The structures all butted up against one another, providing a narrow tight-wire path along the high peak. Three buildings away was the smaller peak of a dormer window almost identical to the one where she stood now. She could not see inside. The angle obscured that view from her. She did not know if it was someone’s apartment, or an office, or simply an empty garret room. But if she could get to it! If she could walk that narrow precipice, perhaps it was a way of escape!
She caught a glimpse of her reflection in a dingy glass. Even if she made it across the roof to the window, she could not walk three steps through the street without being noticed. Bruised face and matted hair. Ashen complexion and trembling hands. “Help me,” she prayed as she turned to gaze with pity upon her baby. “Help me take him to safety. And then . . . it does not matter what happens to me. But for the baby! Sweet Christ Jesus! Have mercy on me!”
How long would Wolf’s telephone calls take? There was no time to think about that now. Lucy fou
nd the washbasin and filled it with cold water. She bathed quickly and washed her hair. Dressing was more difficult. Each thing was done slowly, even though her mind rushed and her spirit shouted that she must hurry!
She donned a loose cotton dress. How strange it seemed to wear this dress now! She had bought it for a picnic by the Danube. Wolf had not liked it; he had ordered her never to wear it again. Clean and soft, it felt good against her skin. Somehow wearing it seemed to give her added strength to defy him. She braided her damp hair and then covered her head with a scarf. The finishing touch was a pair of dark glasses that she had worn on the ski slopes last fall. The glasses helped conceal the bruise beneath her eye. She powdered her nose to cover the redness, then added a touch of lipstick to give her deathly pale skin some color.
The bells of Marienkirche tolled the half hour. How long until Wolf ascended the stairs? She must be gone when he opened the door! No time to rest! No time to sit and let her trembling muscles gather new strength!
The basket of baby things was already packed, as was Lucy’s own valise. But there was no hope that she could carry more than the basket and the baby across the roof. She stuffed some of her things into the basket. Underwear. One thin dress and a sweater. What was left of her money and the crucifix went on the bottom with her papers and the little green book, Waiting at Table.
The rest would remain for Wolf, proof that she had really been here—evidence, along with the blood-stained sheets, that Lucy Strasburg had been within his grasp.
The baby did not awaken when she gathered him up and placed him in the basket. “Let him sleep, dear God,” she breathed. “And let him wake in heaven, or in safety somewhere.”
With that, Lucy leaned her weight against the chest of drawers until it scraped a few inches across the floor to partially block the door. It would not hold Wolf up for long, but even seconds might make the difference.
The window jammed halfway open, making it difficult for Lucy to squeeze out onto the ridgeline. Wolf could not pass through the small space. Here again, he might be delayed.
The Baltic breeze blew hard against her, penetrating the fabric of the dress to awaken every nerve in her body. For just an instant she peered down the steep slate precipice that fell away onto the shadowed street and doubted and feared what she was doing. But did she not fear Wolf more? And if she fell, and the baby fell with her, was not that end better than a future controlled by a man like Wolfgang von Fritschauer and his great Reich?
The thought gave her courage as the bells of Marienkirche tolled three quarters of an hour. Lucy could almost hear the tread of Wolf’s returning footsteps resounding from the street below. She fixed her mind on the four-inch ridge along the peak of the roof and hooked her arm through the handle of the basket. She let go of the window sash and turned to put one foot in front of the other. Like a child walking a rail fence, she told herself. She did not look down. She did not think of the weakness of her legs or the momentary dizziness that threatened to draw her into the abyss. What was behind her was much more terrible than death. Her past must not become her future or the future of her baby! The cobblestones of Heilige Geist Strasse were a gentler bed on which to sleep than the bed Lucy was running from. And so when the pigeons sailed past, she heard their wings and was unafraid. When the echo of traffic below filled her ears, she did not let herself dwell on those things.
Step followed step. She tottered toward the first chimney and then reached out to embrace it. The first landmark of safety! She paused there only long enough to catch her breath. Then fear crept up behind her and shouted that she was a fool, that she should go back to the room and find some other way! Lucy brushed the terror back and once again stepped away from the safety of the brick island to balance herself and launch out toward the next.
23
God Bless the Child
Hess limped into the lobby of the Deutscher Hof, only to be greeted by the eager face of Gustav Ahlman. Ahlman seemed as cheerful as Hess was grim.
“Herr Hess—” Ahlman motioned that his superior officer should join him for a short stroll outside.
“This had better be worth my time,” Hess growled. “I have had a very difficult night, and I am in no mood for—”
Ahlman seemed not to notice Hess’s irritability. The news he had was too good to be short-circuited. “I was looking for you. Called the hotel three times last night from a public telephone in the Heilige Geist district.” He slowed his pace to match the halting step of Hess, who merely glared back at the younger man’s exuberant expression.
“What of it?”
“I followed Major von Fritschauer as usual yesterday. He stopped at several of the derelict boardinghouses in the district.”
Hess’s eyes widened. Here it was, the evidence he had been expecting. Wolfgang von Fritschauer had been in the same district where the Ibsen children had lived. So it was Wolf who warned them! Hess stopped midstride. He shook his head angrily. He had been a fool. Why had he himself not followed Wolf? His throbbing leg held part of the answer to that question. “What did he do?” Hess demanded.
“He has found Lucy Strasburg for us, just as you predicted he would.” Ahlman’s voice grew tight with excitement. “He went to her apartment and stayed several hours. I watched him from across the street.”
“How do you know he was with the woman?”
Ahlman pulled out his dog-eared photograph of Lucy. “I showed this to the concierge of the building. Positive identification. He wanted to know if she was a criminal. Told me there was another fellow up there with her. I told him there was a reward for her capture, and that he must keep an eye out for her until I returned. And then I went to telephone you. Three times, as I said.”
Hess paled with the realization that no doubt Wolf had warned Lucy of the danger of remaining in Danzig, just as he had warned the Ibsen children. “And you followed Wolf when he came out?” Hess was not pleased. “Why did you not stay at the boardinghouse to guard against the escape of the woman?”
Ahlman looked puzzled. “You ordered me to follow Major von Fritschauer. And so I did.” He shrugged. “He is at his hotel. Two blocks from here. At least he was there a few minutes ago. I came straight here to tell you.”
It was true that Hess had instructed the young agent to do nothing but follow and observe. Heinrich Himmler had given him this young, inexperienced agent from the Gestapo roll sheet. And now this was the result! Ahlman had followed the hounds and possibly let the fox go free!
Hess hailed a taxi. “Heilige Geist district,” he commanded. Then he turned to the puzzled junior agent. “The name of her hotel?”
“Hanseatic. But what of von Fritschauer? Is he not the one we should apprehend?”
With a gesture, Hess ordered the underling to be silent. His patience had grown thin. The night had been long and unproductive. Hess could only hope that he was not too late.
***
Lucy dropped to her hands and knees as she neared the dormer. Holding tightly to the basket, she inched forward until the roof of the window was centered beneath her. Like a child descending a playground slide for the first time, she eased herself off the ridge and braced her feet as she scooted down onto the dormer peak to straddle it like a horse. But how to get through the window? She dared not get off the dormer roof. To do so would be to fall.
She crept forward and peered out the eaves and through the soot-caked glass into an attic storage room. The window was hinged to open at the center. Generations of pigeons roosting on the sill had pushed the right window in, leaving just enough of the edge exposed on the left side for Lucy to grasp and pull. “Please, God!” She cried out at the effort.
The hinges tore loose at the top, and with a groan, the window frame crashed forward to hang crazily from one corroded piece of hardware.
Lucy gauged how she might swing the basket and her baby safely through the opening and onto the attic floor from this position. With a sense of regret she looked back toward the window of her own apartmen
t. There at the base of it were the sheets she had put out earlier. She wished she had thought to bring them. She might have made them into a rope by which she could lower the baby and herself to safety. But she had neither the strength nor the time to traverse back across the rooftops to retrieve them. Instead she rummaged through the basket and pulled out her sweater.
Tying one sleeve around the handle of the basket, she lowered her baby out over the empty air. As her heart pounded in her ears, she swung the basket in a gentle arc, passing it over the ledge into the attic. Twice it bumped against the broken window frame and then skittered across the glass to dangle above the courtyard four stories below. Lucy prayed. Not for me. For the baby. She tried again. The slowly swinging rope of yarn stretched beneath the weight as it swept out over the edge of the roof and then back toward the opening. The wicker passed through the narrow space and over the boards of the floor. At that instant, Lucy released her grip and let the weight of the basket carry it inside, where it thumped loudly to the floor.
The baby wailed as his cradle jarred him awake. At the sound of his cries, Lucy called out and forgot her own fears. In a moment she lowered herself off the dormer roof. Blindly her foot groped for the solid feel of the windowsill. The broken window frame gave way beneath her weight as she probed the air. The cries of her child drove thoughts of the cobblestones from her mind! Was he injured? Had the basket fallen open and spilled him out on the dusty floor? “Oh, God!” she cried. “Help me!”
As if a hand touched her groping leg and guided it inward, the sole of her foot found the ledge. Bracing herself, she reached down first with one hand and then the other until she crouched half in and half out of the window. Staring into the dim room, she did not step down until she saw the basket, still closed, beneath her on the floor. Then Lucy tumbled forward, her energy all but expended as she tore open the hamper and picked up the child. He was frightened, wet, and hungry, but uninjured by the fall.
