Nightingale

by Susan May Warren

  “Now I’ll have to go fill it.” Fritz’s eyes flicked over to Peter, a smirk up one side of his face.

  Oh no. And his wound had just begun to heal. “Just leave it, Fritz.”

  “You saw how those farmers’ daughters were looking at me.” He shucked his hair—much longer than when they’d been hauled out of Germany six months ago—back from his face.

  “This is a good gig, Fritz. The Janzens like us—”

  “Hurry up, krauts.” Their lone guard, a doughy man named Bert, who had been aboard a boat in the Pacific, came toward them, his uniform sleeves rolled up, sweat caught in the creases of his neck. “The Janzens offered to feed you lunch.”

  Fritz tucked in his T-shirt but didn’t bother to put on the green POW-designated shirt. It hung over the rail of a corral fence, flapping in the hot July breeze.

  “I told you that blond one was sweet on me.” Fritz grinned, a wolfish look that pushed a thumb into Peter’s gut.

  “Behave yourself.”

  “What, you think you’re the only one who can find a little fraulein to pass the time? I saw you standing out by the fence yesterday, watching her. Everyone knows if you could, you’d march right over Bert and the rest of the guards, track her down, and disappear with her over the border.”

  Peter glanced at Bert, his Winchester he’d left propped against a water barrel while he washed the grime of the day from his face. More than once he’d laid the shotgun down in the fields, helping them haul out boulders or load trucks. Yes, Bert would be easy to walk over.

  Then, yes, he’d find Esther and…disappear.

  A guy like him, without an accent, looking like an Iowa farm boy… He’d blend right in to the Wisconsin horizon.

  “You’re thinking about it, I knew it. You want to escape.” Fritz jolted him from his thoughts, back to the rude heat of reality.

  He shaved his voice to low. “And get shot?”

  “Bert couldn’t hit the side of this barn.” Fritz held the door open for the guard, smiling at him real nice as he entered the house. He glanced at Peter, smile still sweetly glued to his face. “You’d be to the border of Canada before they even knew you were gone. Free.”

  Free.

  Arne and Fritz followed Bert into the house, scraping off their boots at the door. Mrs. Janzen waved to Peter as he pumped the handle to wash his hands.

  Free.

  Yesterday Mrs. Janzen had handed him a plate of crispy, oil-fried kuchen, sizzling from the cast iron pot. Then, she’d asked him about her son. Had any of them seen a skinny redhead who’d been conscripted while visiting his grandparents in Germany? It happened more than Peter wanted to admit—immigrant boys sent back to the homeland for university or to visit family, swept into the Nazi war machine, forced to fight for the führer. Too many boys fighting on the wrong side of the war, too many skinny redheads, their bodies crushed by the advance of Sherman’s armies, wearing the wrong uniform.

  Just like him.

  “No, ma’am,” he said in English, even though she’d asked in German.

  With all the Germans living in America, and especially here in Wisconsin, the line between sides seemed, at best, gauzy. Any one of the farmers he’d worked for over the past three months could have been a neighbor down the street in Dresden. His father’s cohort at the pub.

  His cousin or uncle or best friend.

  Peter had watched her brown eyes skim over them, the texture of desperation so palpable it fisted his chest. He’d wanted to give her an answer. Yes, I’ve seen him. He’s alive.

  He understood the nearly rabid hope for that answer. Yes, I’ve seen him. He’s alive.

  If he could, he’d ask the same question about his family.

  He held his hands under the flow of water, cleaning the woodchips from his hands. He’d developed a blister at the base of his thumb from the smooth axe handle, and the icy nip soothed the burn.

  “Sir?”

  He turned and found the little Janzen boy—he placed him at eight or nine perhaps—standing in the sunlight. “Is that where you got shot?”

  He pointed to the wound on Peter’s side. In the last day, since Esther gave him penicillin, the festering had lessened. He could nearly swing the axe over his head without wincing.

  “I wasn’t shot.”

  The kid was probably a younger version of the boy’s skinny redheaded brother fighting the “krauts” overseas.

  “What happened, then?”

  He pulled his hand out of the water, shook it. “Some wars aren’t fought with guns, kid.” He tousled the boy’s hair and went into the house.

  Fritz, Arne, and Bert sat at the farm table, devouring potato pancakes and milk. Mrs. Janzen stood at the stove, another batch of pancakes complaining in her cast iron pan.

  “Sit down now and dig in,” she said without a smile.

  He pulled out a chair. Mrs. Janzen slapped two still angry pancakes onto his plate, the smell turning him inside out. He poured fresh sour cream over them. The milk balmed his parched throat, the potato pancakes sweet and crispy. He tried not to let the taste of them pull him back to his mother’s kitchen, but—

  Peter, you need to eat. To study.

  In his memory, she bent over him, whisked a kiss onto his cheek, the smell of her perfume—English lavender—drifting into his thoughts. Join us for dinner this Sunday, after church?

  Yes, Mutter.

  His mother would like Esther, he knew it in his bones. Someday—

  A thump on the stairs made them look up, and of course Mrs. Janzen’s daughter, the one with corn braids and a too easy smile, appeared from the attic. Maybe a day over sixteen, she flushed when her gaze traveled over them.

  He glanced at Fritz, who’d put down his fork. At least this time he didn’t have a knife.

  Still, Peter’s wound ached.

  Fritz rose, pulled out a chair for the girl. “Fraulein,” he said quietly.

  She giggled.

  Peter’s chest clenched. Run. But he’d already warned the guards—Bert especially—of the last time he found Fritz in a barn with a farm girl. He’d had his hands in places that made Peter hot inside, and the girl had gone from giggles to whimpers by the time Peter pulled Fritz away.

  Fritz—a warning breeched his tongue but never made it out because, as if he could read his mind, Fritz glanced at him. His gaze flicked to Peter’s wound, back to his eyes.

  Peter left his gaze hard in Fritz’s. He didn’t care what kind of tableware Fritz put into his pocket, the Janzen girl wasn’t going to get trapped in the barn with Fritz. Besides, if Peter recalled correctly, he’d been the one with the axe this morning.

  Fritz’s mouth tightened around the edges before he turned back to the girl and practiced his broken English.

  She giggled again.

  Peter finished the pancake, despite the sour in his stomach. Oh, to take men like Fritz and his gang of Nazis back at the camp and throw them into a hole where they belonged. But, well, according to the locals, he belonged there too.

  And, if he kept getting in Fritz’s way, he might just get there first.

  “Would you like more, Peter?” Mrs. Janzen stood over him with a pancake turner stacked with mini cakes. He shook his head. “Then perhaps you’ll play the piano for us again?”

  She nodded to the upright in the parlor.

  Bert layered another pancake onto his plate. Arne, too, reached for another.

  Peter stood up, wiped off his hands, then took his place at the round stool, still turned to his height.

  He ran his fingers up and down the keys in a couple scales then let himself remember the chords to “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.”

  A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing;

  Our helper He amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing:

  For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe;

  His craft and power are great, and, armed with cruel hate,

  On earth is not his equal.

  On earth is not
his equal. He forgot that sometimes. Like when he’d tried to staunch the blood of Linus Hahn from seeping into the dirt, to the rancor of explosions around them. Or when, at night, he heard Fritz and his Nazi pals take their fists to one of the new prisoners, just to remind him that he hadn’t escaped the Third Reich, even in Wisconsin. Or even, as he’d stood in the dirt, the barbed wire cutting through his vision as he watched Esther return to her life, the one to which he couldn’t belong.

  Yet.

  Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing;

  No, not yet. And mowing down Bert and running with Esther to the far-off horizon wouldn’t make any of them free. He just had to keep reminding himself of that.

  Mrs. Janzen stepped up behind him, and he didn’t know what jolted him more—her farm-worked hand on his shoulder, or her taking up the verse in her vibrato German.

  Es steit’t für uns der rechte Mann, Den Gott hat selbst erkoren.

  Fragst du, wer der ist? Er heisst Jesu Christ,

  Der Herr Zebaoth, Und ist kein andrer Gott,

  Das Feld muss er behalten.

  At the table, Arne had stopped chewing, now looked up at Peter.

  And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,

  We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us:

  Arne smiled.

  Yes, God had willed His truth to triumph. Sometimes Peter forgot that too. Truth would triumph. He had believed that the day he’d watched the SS wrestle his father from his bed, throw him onto the street, haul him off to the Gestapo offices.

  Truth would triumph. He’d believed that when he’d bailed his father from jail and bartered his medical service to the Third Reich for his parents’ freedom.

  He’d forgotten that watching too many boys die in the frozen mud, on either side of the battlefield.

  But he needed truth to triumph now. Needed to believe that, if he kept pursuing faithfulness, he might have a happy ending. Don’t pick any fights, don’t try to escape, just keep his head down and trust in God’s deliverance for him, and his family.

  He played the rest of the song, humming out the words, hearing Mrs. Janzen pour them out in a tongue he’d often hated. Now, he let it seep into him, not caring what language the hymn ministered in.

  Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also;

  The body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still,

  His kingdom is forever.

  He rolled the final chord, letting the sound fill the farmhouse, resonate through his fingers to resound inside. His kingdom is forever.

  That, he wouldn’t forget.

  “Thank you, Peter,” Mrs. Janzen said softly. She ran a finger under her eye.

  He got up and then, because something inside him told him to, he bent down and softly kissed her floury cheek.

  She let him, not making a move even as he went out of the house and into the hot sunlight.

  Fritz followed him out. But when he glanced over at Peter, something dark lurked in his eyes.

  And Peter knew that yes, indeed, one look could change his life.

  But Linus had said he didn’t want her.

  Esther stood more than an arm’s length from the knot of people—Mrs. Hahn, Bertha, even two of the patients who must have attended grammar school with Linus—as he regaled them with the tale of how he cheated death on the grimy operating tables of a field hospital, how they took his leg, and how he nearly choked on his own blood. She could imagine with him how he clung to life during those gray days of recovery, clawing through the pain. She could even understand his nearly frantic longing to return home to his family, to his life.

  But he’d said he didn’t want her.

  And that he felt nothing for Sadie.

  Esther ran her hands up her bare arms, her eyelet sundress hot against her skin. He’d waited for her on the portico of the hospital this morning, where the roses and hydrangeas bloomed as if contemplating something romantic.

  However, nothing but relief lifted to his eyes when he turned in his wheelchair and found her, unable to hide the question in her eyes.

  She had, however, hidden away Sadie with Caroline. She wouldn’t give him Sadie—not yet. Not until she understood.

  Mrs. Hahn barely allowed them a moment of terse greeting before she thundered in. Now she moved back from the storytelling to stand beside Esther.

  She appeared re-birthed in a resurrection white suit, a pink scarf at her throat, a white pillbox hat atop her dark hair. She didn’t look at Esther. “He asked you to move home.”

  Esther stared at the ground, where the cracks ran through the flagstone.

  “Of course, Linus will have his old room until the wedding, but you’re used to the attic.”

  “I think he’ll be at the hospital, recuperating for some time.” Esther’s voice melted in the summer heat.

  “He’ll want you with us. Sadie with us. Preparing for his return.”

  Esther’s gaze ran to Bertha, who stood back from the group, her expression granite, ensconced in a pained relief. Still, Esther could see emotion moving behind it. Now and again the housekeeper adjusted the blanket on Linus’s legs.

  Her voice dropped from her, more mumble than protest. “He said he didn’t love me. He didn’t want Sadie.” She turned her face away as she said it, her gaze on the far end of the grounds, the pine that rimmed the hill. The heat of the day dripped moisture down her back. Where was Peter today? Working at the cannery? Perhaps in a field?

  “Linus was confused. Ill.”

  “He wrote it before he was injured.”

  “Things are different now. He needs you.”

  He didn’t need her. He needed his mother. He needed Bertha. He needed…Rosemary. Esther tightened her arms over her stomach, pressing down against a bubble of ache. She’d seen Rosemary this morning, lurking down the hall, peeking out a window to the portico where Linus sat in the sun. Esther pressed herself down the hall and to the double French doors.

  By the time she opened them, Rosemary had vanished.

  “You told me to leave.” She let her voice carry an edge.

  “Now I’m inviting you back.” Mrs. Hahn smiled to one of Linus’s friends, pressing a kiss to his cheek as he walked past, back inside the hospital. “Thank you for coming, Ricky.”

  “Don’t you think it would be best if we didn’t pretend—”

  Mrs. Hahn’s hand snaked out, vised Esther’s arm right above her elbow, turned her slightly. Esther didn’t wince or betray the pain that shot up to her neck.

  Mrs. Hahn took a breath. “None of us is pretending, dear. Return home, where you’re needed. We have a wedding to plan.” She released her.

  “I have a job. And I’ve applied to the nursing management program—”

  “No.”

  She turned to the crowd. “Linus is back, and he needs his wife to take care of him. You’ll quit—”

  “I’m not quitting—”

  “It doesn’t matter. I will ask Dr. O’Grady to let you go.” She looked over at her. “Or perhaps I should tell the judge about your friend at the POW camp. See what he says about women who betray their country.”

  She swallowed down the blade lodged in her throat. “I haven’t betrayed my country.”

  “He’s an enemy. And you’ve been writing to him.”

  “He’s a man. A German, yes, but he loves America. He grew up here.”

  Bertha raised her head, looked at them.

  “He’s on the wrong side of the barbed wire for that.”

  Esther tightened her jaw. “This isn’t about… It doesn’t matter. Linus doesn’t have the right to change his mind.”

  Mrs. Hahn took a breath, her chest moving up and down. Then she turned, and with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes, “He’s a Hahn. So, yes, my dear Esther, he does.”

  She patted her on the arm then moved back to the group as Linus turned his wheelchair around. His eyes—she barely remembered them, and
certainly never that dark—landed on her, and something in them rushed a chill down her spine.

  Then it vanished, and the smallest smile tipped his lips. He held out his hand and what could she do? She found her nightingale smile and walked over to him.

  “Are you tired? I can take you back to your room.”

  He nodded, and something about it churned real pity in her chest. Yes, maybe he did have a right, after everything he’d sacrificed, to want someone waiting for him at home.

  Just not her.

  She moved behind his wheelchair and pushed it away from his fans. “Visiting hours are over. See you troublemakers tomorrow.” She winked at Private Johansson, glad she didn’t know he and Linus had been playmates the last time she gave him a sponge bath.

  She moved past Mrs. Hahn without looking at her.

  The judge had secured his son a semi-private room, although the other bed remained empty. She wheeled him to the side of his bed. Leaned over to help him in.

  “I can do it.” His voice contained an edge, but she recognized the frustration of so many wounded men who came home with half—or less—of themselves. She held the wheelchair steady as he worked his way, not without the kind of grunts that she felt to her bones, into his bed. He used the trapeze bar for leverage and tucked his empty pajama leg under the covers as she pulled them up.

  Then he leaned back, just breathing.

  In. Out. The second hand of the clock over the door ticked behind them. Already, the sun dropped gray across the hospital grounds.

  “I have to start my shift soon.”

  He continued to stare at the ceiling. She’d forgotten so much of him—the dark, ebony hair that fell over his face, the eyes that before could turn her to liquid. Or perhaps that had been a different girl on which they’d had that effect. So different. She recognized the dimple in his chin, but for the first time she realized how young he seemed. A boy, really, one who’d tried to grow up too fast.

  Scars carved the history of his wounds into his neck, his arm also knotted, with serpentine scars running the length of it. How he’d lived attested, probably, to Peter’s expertise.