by Liz Tolsma
“I always am.”
She bounced down the stairs, in a hurry to get home, take out the cards, and hide them. Her pounding of her heart matched the pace of her feet as she scurried down the hall, so many cards in her possession. Not that anyone knew, but she wouldn’t rest easy until she got home.
She stopped short when she reached the street.
Hauptsturmführer Jaeger stood on the walk. He nodded at her.
What was he doing here? How could he have known where she was unless he’d followed her? Her heart tripped over itself.
“Guten aben, fräulein.”
“Good afternoon, Hauptsturmführer Jaeger.” She worked hard to keep the tremor from her voice. “What a surprise to see you here.” Her coat weighed her down.
“I hoped to run into you.”
How much did he know? “It looks like you did.”
“Who were you visiting?”
“A childhood friend.” That much was not a lie. “What brings you to this part of the city?”
“I was out exploring. I don’t believe I’ve ever been to this neighborhood.”
“Ne, I suppose not.” It wasn’t trendy. It didn’t offer any entertainment. The only reasonable explanation was that he’d followed her.
“Allow me to drive you home.”
She gazed at the shiny black car parked nearby. “It’s a beautiful day. I think I’ll walk and enjoy it. During winter, you have to take advantage of this nice weather when you get it.”
With slight pressure on the small of her back, he guided her to the curb and opened the door. “I insist.”
Of course he did. She tried a grateful smile on for size and slipped into the car. Once he closed the door, her stomach cartwheeled in her midsection. She shouldn’t have done this. She should have declined. Even if she had to slip under his arm and sprint down the street, she should never have gotten in this vehicle with him.
What was she going to do?
She grasped the door handle.
Before she formulated a plan, he slid into the driver’s seat and pulled into the street. In moments, they arrived in a part of the city she wasn’t familiar with. “Where are you taking me?”
“I have a surprise for you.” He turned to her and winked.
The ration cards in her coat bumped her calf as she crossed her legs. She clasped her hands to keep them from trembling.
Lord, help!
The sun teased at Anna’s eyelids until she opened them. The little round alarm clock on the bedside table read two o’clock.
But this wasn’t her room. She’d fallen asleep in her parent’s bed. She brushed a lock of hair from her itchy eyes. Her nose was stuffed.
With the force of a cannonball, she remembered why.
They were gone.
All of them.
She ran to the bathroom and lost the small lunch Babička had insisted she eat. Once empty, she sat on the floor, shivering.
The mother who’d given her life. The father who’d held her hand when she crossed the street. The sisters who’d giggled with her. All dead.
Babička snored in the other room. That, at least, was good.
Anna forced her weak legs to support her. As she stumbled down the hall to the living room, she leaned on the wall. Her violin laid in the middle of the sofa.
She sat on the flowered cushion and opened the case’s lid. She caressed the rich tiger-maple wood.
The music refused to come. Her head was empty.
Her heart was empty.
Her life was empty.
Out of instinct, she raised the instrument to her chin, fingers on the strings. A requiem. She needed to hear the music of the Bach Violin Sonata No. 2 in A Minor.
Tentative, she played the first few notes. The mournful sound flooded her soul. Her fingers picked out the next measure, then the third. Somehow, they remembered. They danced their way up and down the fingerboard. From a place deep inside, the music came. Not the music of joy, but the melody of mourning.
She poured out her heart and everything inside of her. Tears streaked down her cheeks, blurring her vision, but she didn’t need to see. She breathed it. Became it. The music carried her to days spent in the kitchen with Máma and nights on Táta’s lap in front of the fire. To summer afternoons with Jana and Lada swimming in the Vltava River and fall evenings exploring the city with David.
Those days were gone forever.
The music cried. So did she.
Had she told them enough that she loved them? Why had she ever grumbled or complained or disobeyed? What had been her last words to them?
Her fingers halted.
She couldn’t remember. Oh, she couldn’t remember.
Anna sat across the small kitchen table from Babička and traced the rim of her bright blue, orange, and yellow cup, the edge smooth and cool. With her stomach churning, she couldn’t force herself to drink the concoction that passed for coffee these days. A gray rain fell outside, the chilly dampness seeping into the old walls of the building.
Babička stroked the back of Anna’s hand with her own wrinkled one. “I know it’s hard.”
Anna bit back the tears that choked her. “For you too.”
“When you live as long as I do, you experience much loss throughout your life. So many loved ones have come and gone. Yet they all left an impression on me that made me the person I am today. I have loved and have let go. But I wouldn’t wish my life any other way. I trust that God’s plan is perfect.”
Ever since she could remember, Anna had heard about God’s all-wise plan. “What is so perfect about my life? About losing my parents and my sisters?”
“You may not see it now, but God knows the outcome.”
“You are sad, angry, and maybe even scared, ne?”
Tears welled in Babička’s gray eyes. “There is an empty place in my heart. I should not outlive my children. Your mother was one of God’s greatest gifts to me. All I want to do now is go home.” She clutched her heart, her hand trembling.
Anna squeezed her grandmother’s fingers. “Ne, not you too. I couldn’t bear another grief right now.”
“When it is my time, He will call me home. And I want you to remember the good and think about where I will be. That is what I am doing now with my darling Eva. I can hear her singing childish songs when she was little. I think of her walking down the aisle in our church to her groom. I see her holding you when you were born.”
Babička sipped her coffee. “Look around us and the suffering of this world. Hauptmann Engel described Terezín as an awful place. I imagine the camp they went to must be much worse. But they suffer no more. They are in heaven, where God wipes away all pain and tears.”
“Is that why you want to go there?”
Babička’s mouth trembled. “Yes. What more do I have to live for? Whether the Lord calls me home today or years from now, I will be content.”
“I wish I could be.”
“That is a gift that comes with time. The world will dim, and heaven will grow brighter.”
A knock came at the door, followed by a call from Hauptmann Engel. “Frau Doubeková, Fraulein Zadoková, I have your mail.”
The grief in Anna’s throat hardened at his voice. It shouldn’t surprise her that he went through their post, but her midsection burned to think of yet another violation. She hustled to the door and flung it open. “I will take that and thank you not to touch our mail again.” She wrenched the letters from his grasp.
He stood in the doorway, his mouth a gaping hole.
One envelope fluttered to the floor. She grabbed it before he could pick it up.
It bore an official mark.
She had seen it before.
The world spun around her.
He caught her as she sank to the floor. His warmth enveloped her. For the briefest of moments, she enjoyed it.
“Fraulein Zadoková, is something is wrong?” His words broke through her haze.
She shook her head. “I’m fine. Please let
go of me.” She stumbled back as he did her bidding.
“You aren’t fine. What made you so woozy?”
Babička hobbled to Anna’s side. “What is that letter?”
Anna clutched it. “You don’t want to know.”
“I do know.”
Hauptmann Engel leaned over. “It’s from the government. Open it.”
The furrow of his brow must be part of his act. “Why should I, when we all know what it is?”
Babička pried it from Anna’s hands and slid her finger under the envelope’s flap. Anna closed her eyes while her grandmother scanned the document.
“We have two weeks until we have to report. Two weeks to put our things in order. They list what we can bring with us.”
“I don’t even need to see it. I remember Máma packing before they were deported.”
Hauptmann Engel sucked in his breath. “It’s your deportation notice?”
“Yes. Did you think our friend would protect us forever? We have two weeks left of life as we know it. Then, it will only be a matter of time before your friends, your countrymen, cart us off to our deaths, just as they did our family.” Heat rose in Anna’s neck. “And you are the one taking us there.”
Patricie clung to the car’s door handle, the bundle of ration coupons tucked inside her coat, as Hauptsturmführer Jaeger wove his way through Prague’s narrow, ancient streets. What would the labor camp be like? How long would she be there? Would they torture her for information?
She now understood the fear of the people she hid and fed. Not knowing where you were going, only that it wasn’t good and none returned, was sheer terror itself.
Hauptsturmführer Jaeger laughed, the sound of it like a frozen arctic tundra. Patricie shivered.
“Don’t worry so much, my little bird.”
She cringed at the term of endearment.
“This is a good surprise. You studied at the Prague Conservatory, did you not?”
“Is that what the surprise has to do with?” Many of her former classmates now resided at Terezín. Was she to join them there?
“You will see. Now, loosen your grasp on the door handle and enjoy the ride. Has it been such a long time since you’ve been in an auto?”
“Quite awhile.” Her parents never had money for one. Georg took her for a ride in his car a couple of times, but that was it.
“Then sit back and have fun. I have quite the afternoon planned for us.”
“But I truly have much to do at home. With my job at the shop taking so much time, it’s rare I have a day off.” She had to get rid of the ration cards before he discovered them.
“Then you should enjoy this.”
She sat back but couldn’t unwind. For the entire trip, her heart pulsed against her chest. At last, he pulled up to a restaurant overflowing with German officers like himself. Nazi flags festooned the outside and swastikas hung everywhere.
And here she came, contraband stuffed inside her coat’s lining. Hauptsturmführer Jaeger led her into the dark interior. The owners set tables in front of a stage. “There is a fine orchestra playing today. Since you are a music connoisseur, I thought you would appreciate it.”
Any other time, any other place, with any other person, perhaps she would. But not now. Not here. And not with him. She gave him another painted-on smile. “Děkuji. It was kind of you to think of me.”
He stepped behind her. At his breath on her neck, the little hairs on her arms stood upright. “Let me take your coat.”
She clung to its lapels and spun around so fast the cards bumped against her leg. “Ne. I’m rather chilly. If you don’t mind, I’ll keep it on.” She sat so he wouldn’t tug it from her shoulders.
“Suit yourself.” He pulled the table’s other chair beside her and sat.
After she consumed two glasses of water, the musicians took the stage and tuned their instruments. She recognized several of the players. They were Jewish. The yellow stars on their jackets confirmed that. Why would the Germans choose them as part of the group?
And then, they played. They were the finest the city had to offer. They performed some Wagner and Beethoven. Her oboe sat silent in a corner of her flat. The war had stolen her desire for its song, yet this music flooded her soul. The cards in her coat and the Nazi officer sitting too close to her faded into the background. Beauty and serenity surrounded her.
Before she was ready for it, the performance ended. She turned to Hauptsturmführer Jaeger who leaned over, his nose mere centimeters from hers.
“Ah, your face is glowing. You enjoyed it, just as I knew you would.”
“Yes, děkuji, I did. Do they often have music like this here?”
“Sometimes. Other times they have Czech jazz, but I don’t care for that uneven rhythm as much. Do you?”
“Not at all. Give me Beethoven any day.”
“We have much in common, then.”
One shared taste did not mean they had similar views on everything. “Yes, we do.”
“I would very much like to get to know you better, Patricie. You intrigue me.”
“With your research, I thought you knew everything about me by now.”
He laughed, another sinister sound. “Not quite. I don’t understand why you were in that neighborhood. You pop up in unusual places in the city.”
“And where you come from, don’t you have friends all over town?”
“I was busy taking care of my mother and sister. I never had much time for friends.”
“No friends?”
“Nein. Not anyone close to me. I was provider and protector for my family. I spent all my effort on fulfilling my duty to them.”
“Your mother and sister must appreciate your care for them.”
His features softened for the tiniest, littlest bit. “It’s what you do. Protect them from those trying to take advantage of them. But I don’t understand having friends so spread out.”
“With my church, my job, and my schooling, I have acquaintances all over the place.” Friends who counterfeited ration cards and hid Jews. “And I like to explore. You never know what you will find.”
Hauptsturmführer Jaeger leaned ever closer. The malty odor of beer on his breath touched her. “How true that is.”
Then he kissed her on the lips.
She chomped back the bile rising in her throat.
Dearest Mutti,
Horst bit the top of his pen and stared at the drawing he’d made of Anna that now sat on his desk. In her hands, she held her violin, enraptured by the music she played. He could stare at it all day.
But he had a dilemma. How should he word this letter to his mother? He had to be careful how he said things so she would catch his meaning but the censors wouldn’t.
How do we know right from wrong? I have a beautiful woman for an upstairs neighbor in my new flat. She has had some devastating news and doesn’t know what to do about it. I want to help her, but how? Doing so may anger some influential people and affect me in ways I’m not sure I’m ready for.
Would she understand?
I wish you were here so we could speak face to face about this matter. I need your advice. Vater would disapprove of my wanting to help this woman. He would tell me I’m not a good German officer. But I want to know what you would think.
I can guess at your words. You would tell me to seek the Lord and follow His will. But that is difficult in this situation. It could cost me my life.
Horst laughed a wry chuckle as he wrote the last sentence. It was as if his mother stood beside him, quoting scripture, her voice firm, unwavering. “‘Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.’”
From upstairs sprang the beautiful melody of Anna’s violin. He reveled in the sound which erased his doubts and eased his fears. The tune brought him back to those wonderful evenings with his mother
at the symphony. The way she would relax against the velvet upholstered seat as the music softened the lines radiating from her eyes. The way she’d laugh when she bought him a seltzer water during intermission.
Those days of innocence, before he’d learned why his mother only smiled at the symphony. How his brother’s death had changed his father and torn their family apart.
Thank you, Mutti, for your wise words as I grew up. I may not have you by my side right now, but I will always have your insight and the wisdom you ingrained in me.
He tapped the ashes from the tip of his cigarette. On that awful day following that terrible night, she’d read him the passage about no Jews or Greeks. He’d never forget.
It will be difficult and perhaps impossible, but I will try to help the woman upstairs.
He didn’t want Anna’s music to end.
At a sharp knock at the door, his pen skidded across the page. Horst crumpled the paper and tossed it in the trash can before answering. “Ah, Hauptsturmführer Jaeger, what a surprise.” He couldn’t bring himself to add the word pleasant.
“I was sorry you didn’t join us at the restaurant for the performance today. You told me you enjoy classical music so much.”
Horst tried to keep his gaze from the waste can. He couldn’t appear guilty. “I just wanted a quiet day at home to get caught up on some letter writing and such.”
“I’m sure your father is pleased to hear how you have impressed your superiors.”
“He is.”
From upstairs drifted the most beautiful, most mournful music Horst ever heard. Stefan stopped for a moment. “Who is that?”
“My neighbor.”
“A Jewess, I believe.”
Of course Stefan would know. He made it his business to know everything about everyone. “Ja. Listen to her play, so beautiful and with such tone. That’s why I bent the rule and allowed her to keep her instrument.”
“Rules are not meant to be broken.” Stefan started for the door.
A lump formed in Horst’s chest. He grabbed Stefan. “She’s soon to be deported, if I’m not mistaken. Let me enjoy her music for now. Such a shame she’ll be gone when she plays so well. Perhaps you could get her name erased?”
