by Liz Tolsma
“You play for them. I think they’ll keep you around as long as you’re able to stand on two feet.”
“And that won’t be long.” Yet another bloody cough punctuated his words.
“Let me get the doctor for you. Maybe he can help.”
David waved him away. “He has no medicine, nothing to cure me. Nothing to even make me comfortable. Don’t waste your time.”
“At least let me see if I can find another blanket around here. Simon Bergmann died last night. Maybe no one claimed his yet.” Jan left the stuffy attic room, slamming the door behind him, the entire building shaking.
He returned without one. Someone else had probably snatched it within minutes of Simon’s passing.
Salvation. The word from Jan’s lips echoed in David’s mind. Salvation. Like a long-forgotten flavor on the tongue.
Salvation.
This day is salvation come to this house.
From the story of Zacchaeus.
Is that what Hauptmann Engel had meant? Was David’s own salvation at hand?
Anna sat in the front room with her knitting. The bright summer light fingered its way into the room, filtering around the curtains they kept drawn. During the day, with Horst gone, she and Babička stayed as quiet as possible. Babička napped twice a day now. Her health declined. How much longer could she hold on? The hours stretched out long in front of the them.
Her fingers ached to play again. She could do without food and water. She couldn’t live without her music.
The flat’s walls closed in on her. Summer beckoned with its balmy temperatures and streaming sunshine. Warm rays on her skin. A soft breeze on her cheek. Clean air in her lungs.
Horst came home as she dumped the paprika into the pot for goulash, his boot falls heavy, no whistling as usual. He entered and closed the door as hard as possible. She went to the front hall to greet him. He scowled, his lips tight.
She sucked in her breath. What was wrong? “Hello.”
He grunted.
“Dinner is almost ready.” She couldn’t make him thick bread dumplings. They didn’t have much, because he didn’t have ration cards for them. He couldn’t get them without explaining who they were for. But a little warm goulash would keep their bellies from complaining.
“I’m not hungry. You and your grandmother can eat. Don’t bother with me.”
“What’s wrong?” She trembled. Was he angry with her? Was he going to turn them out?
“I don’t want to talk about it. Leave me alone. Just leave me be.” His words bounced around the room.
Babička shuffled out. “What a commotion. I thought the Gestapo had come.”
Horst softened. “Ne, I’m sorry. A bad day. My apologies.”
“We all have days like that. Music calms the soul. David played for King Saul.” Babička nodded. “Not that you’re insane, but you are troubled.”
“Fine. Let a man get in the door and get his house slippers on.”
Anna went to the back bedroom to get her violin for the first time in many weeks. Babička followed.
“Why did you say I would play? He’s angry with me.”
“Not with you. With someone or something, but not with you. I watch him when you play. He enjoys it. His life is hard, Anna.”
“And ours isn’t? Look at us. Hiding in our enemy’s home. Cowering in our room when people stop by. Not able to go outside. And what about David in the camp? His life is much worse than ours. Or think of the horror our family endured before their deaths. Don’t tell me his life is hard.”
“But it is. Not physically, but in many other ways. We don’t know what he’s forced to do each day.”
“He works for architectural preservation. Not what I would call difficult.”
“He’s seen things, seen how his people treat ours. Believe it or not, he has a sensitive, gentle soul. The carnage hurts him. And now he has responsibility for us. That’s an extra burden on him.”
“I’ll play for him so that we can have a peaceful evening at home, but I refuse to believe his problems are equal to ours.”
Anna grabbed her instrument and marched to the front room. She pulled it from its case, set the case on the couch beside Horst, and plucked the strings to tune. Within a few minutes, strains of Mozart filled the flat.
He sat for a few moments, then rose and paced. He rubbed his chin and his back. He stared at her, his look hard and unreadable. After another circuit of the room, he returned to his seat and scrubbed his face.
She missed a note.
He slammed the case shut. Spoke in German. “Enough. That’s enough for tonight. Put it away. I don’t want to hear it.”
“But—”
“I said enough.” He strode across the room and down the hall.
Anna laid her violin on the sofa and turned to Babička. “Maybe he’s more like King Saul than you thought.”
“Go to him.”
She turned on her heel. “Ne. I won’t. Not when he’s been short and cross with me, with us, tonight.”
“He’s scared.”
“Scared of what?”
“I don’t know. That’s what you need to find out. He’s here, alone, with no family, no friends. He needs to talk to you.”
“He has that friend who came here and almost arrested us.”
“That’s no friend to him.”
“Please, I don’t want to.”
“Trust me.”
“I have trusted you enough, ne?” But she had already lost the battle.
“He needs you more than he realizes.”
Anna went to his room and rapped on his door. Maybe he wouldn’t answer. Maybe he had fallen asleep.
“Come in.”
She entered. Feminine touches brightened the space. Doilies on the table. A lace-edged blanket on the bed. Items Paní Schniz had left behind. “I’m sorry I upset you.”
He sat on the bed, his sketchbook open on his lap. “And I’m sorry I snapped. I didn’t mean to. You didn’t do anything. This has nothing to do with you.”
She caught a glimpse of his drawing. Hard, dark lines. Ghosts of people, their faces drawn and gaunt. Piles of bodies along a road.
Terezín.
Did it bother him? Make him angry? Babička’s words, the ones that sent her in here, nudged at her. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not really.” Fine lines radiated from his blue eyes. The creases around his mouth deepened.
“You haven’t been sleeping well, have you? I heard you call out the other night.”
“Ne, I haven’t.”
“I want to be a friend to you.”
“Do you really?”
Did she? He was her enemy. And savior. He could have turned them in more than once. He didn’t. Every day, he risked his life for them. What a small thing she could offer to repay him. “Yes, I do.”
“You may not like me very much afterward. I want you to trust me, but you may hate me.”
“I trust you.” And she meant it. “You saved me on the bridge.”
“I sent five Jews to their deaths today.”
Her knees buckled. She fell to the floor.
Horst sprang from the bed and grabbed Anna before she hit her head on the wardrobe. He should never have told her. He wanted to block the entire incident from his mind. Why say the words? “Anna, I’m sorry.”
“How could you? We trusted you.”
“You can trust me.”
“I’m not sure we can. Perhaps our trust was misplaced. Please, don’t turn us in.”
“I won’t.”
“Then why did you do it?”
“Sit down.” He led her to the small arm chair by the window. “I didn’t want to.”
“Then why did you?”
“Hauptsturmführer Jaeger brought me to a house without telling me why. When we arrived, he ordered me to search the place. I found them. With everything in me, I didn’t want to, but I did. Before I slid the door to their hiding spot closed, the baby inside crie
d. Jaeger heard him. He arrested them.”
“You didn’t arrest them, then?”
“Nein.” He couldn’t tell her, wouldn’t tell her the rest. The sound of that gunshot would haunt him the rest of his life.
“How can it be your fault?” Her face radiated such innocence. Even after all she’d seen, she exuded naiveté.
“I should have refused orders.”
“At the cost of your own life.”
“Is my life worth more than theirs? Can you put a price on a human and say one is more valuable than the next?”
“Hitler believes you can.”
He paced in front of her. “Hitler is a madman. That’s not the way my mother brought me up. My father would agree with Hitler. She would not.”
“Why?”
“She is a devout Christian, never wavering in her faith. My father used to be like that. He went to church with us, led our family devotions, told others about the Lord.”
“What happened to change him?”
He covered his ears, as if he could blot out the sound of his father’s rage. “My brother was the spitting image of my father, not only in looks, but also in temperament, likes, dislikes. Everything. When polio struck, both of us were sick, but I got better. Otto did not.”
“But how does that explain his hatred for a certain race of people?”
“Otto’s doctor was Jewish. He tried to save my brother, but there was nothing he could do. When Otto died, my father flew into a rage about the man. Lashed out at each and every Jew around him. As if that would bring his son back.”
“And that same grief and fury still drives him?”
“Ja. Like a car coasting downhill gathers speed, so each year, his hatred only increases. At some point, he will crash.”
Anna leaned forward in the chair. “And what about you? What do you say?” She whispered, and he strained to hear her.
He stopped in his tracks. Sending those Jews to their certain deaths made him no better than his father. The question hung in the air. The all-important, all-defining question. Did God create him, a pure Aryan, to be better than the Jews? How about the disabled? The old? For there is neither Jew nor Greek. “If you believe the Bible to be true, you have to say no.”
“I’m not asking about anyone other than you. Are you better than other people?” Anna fixed her gaze on him, her look boring through him, deep into his soul.
She laid him bare. Exposed him. “Mutti taught me better than that. But after Otto died, Vater tried to dissuade me from her teaching. From God’s teaching.”
He knelt in front of her. “You’re showing me otherwise, Anna. I used to turn my head away from the horrific acts around me because I couldn’t stand the sight of suffering. Now, I’ve seen it through your eyes. Realized that what repulses me is one human being degraded and defiled by another human. We are all made in God’s image.”
He’d been so blind, his heart calloused. And he’d been a coward. “I should have done more today, tried harder to save them. Even if it meant my own life.”
Anna reached out and caressed his clenched fists until his muscles relaxed, and he opened his palms. “You were in an impossible situation. It’s not your fault, what happened. If you hadn’t found them today, Hauptsturmführer Jaeger may have found them tomorrow. Or located them himself. That baby would have cried and given them away.”
“You don’t know that.” He stood again and rubbed his aching temple. “What could I have done? A thousand different things.”
The color in her cheeks heightened. “Babička once reminded me we can’t live in the past. Ever since my parents and siblings went away, I’ve wanted to do just that.” A sob caught in her throat. She pinched the bridge of her nose, her eyes shining with tears. “But what would it accomplish? It can’t bring them back. It can’t undo anything I ever did. Wishing you acted in another manner doesn’t make it so. That’s a lesson I’m trying to learn.”
Her words stirred more turmoil in his gut. “Don’t torture me.” He choked out the sentence.
She rose and touched his shoulder, then down his arm. He shivered. They stood, flesh to flesh. “You are not like your father. God is working in you, showing you right from wrong.”
He gathered her to himself, her tiny body warm against his. He whispered into her soft hair. If only he believed her. “Am I? I want to be. I want to please Him.”
She leaned back and tipped his head so he stared at her, into her shimmering brown eyes. “If He wasn’t contending with you, you wouldn’t be torn over what happened today. Do you think Hauptsturmführer Jaeger is sitting at home, wondering if he did the right thing? If he can’t sit still because of what he saw?”
“I’m sure he’s out celebrating how he broke me and made me into a man. Some kind of man I am.”
“Force doesn’t make a boy a man. Honesty, compassion, faith. Those turn a child into a grown-up.”
Her dark hair framed her thin face. She drew in a ragged breath. He’d never seen a more beautiful creature.
He bent and kissed her.
A knock at the front door. “Engel, I’ve come to celebrate with you.”
Stefan.
Horst let go of Anna so fast, she stumbled from his embrace. Her blood whooshed in her ears. “What is Hauptsturmführer Jaeger doing here?”
“You heard him. You were right. He thinks my actions today warrant a party. Stay here. I have to answer the door.”
After he left, she hugged herself to ward off the chill that raced through her. He’d kissed her. She’d let him kiss her. He opened himself to her and let her see a side of him she doubted anyone else saw. He struggled, and that endeared him to her. She understood his outbursts better. He wasn’t upset with her but with himself.
He had to be in a terrible position, knowing the right, and knowing doing the right demanded the ultimate cost. Going to work each day had to be torture.
Would she have done differently? Acted in any other way than he did? Ne, she might not have.
Hauptsturmführer Jaeger’s jubilant voice carried throughout the flat. Horst answered him in more subdued tones. And then, a woman spoke.
A woman? Who had that man brought with him? Anna crept to the door and listened to as much of the conversation as she could.
“Patricie and I were at a reception for German diplomats. But why should we have all the fun? Come out with us, and let’s toast your success today.”
“I’m exhausted. Perhaps coming down with a cold. I should stay in and get a good night’s sleep.” Horst coughed. Rather convincing. “I hope you two enjoy yourselves.”
“Nein, I insist. There is time for sleeping later. You don’t have to go to the office tomorrow, so enjoy the evening. Don’t spoil our fun.”
“I don’t think my staying in will ruin your plans.”
“If you’re holding back because you don’t have a date, bring that little maid of yours along. I know you have a thing for her.”
Horst coughed harder. “My maid?”
“Is she here? I want to see her again.”
Anna’s heart rate kicked up to the level of an Olympic sprinter’s.
“What was her name again? Anna, wasn’t that it? Anna, Anna, come out here.” Hauptsturmführer Jaeger slurred his words.
She pressed against the wall. The man pounded down the hall, his jackboots marching out the time. She dared a breath only every ten seconds or so.
“Stefan, really. She’s not here. She’s gone for the night.”
“I can smell her. The scent of a woman. Where is she?” He thundered into the room.
Every muscle in her body tensed. She sweated and shivered at the same time.
He flung back the blanket. “Ah, Engel, I’m disappointed in you. She’s not in your bed. Too bad for you. If she’s a Jew whore, she’d be great fun.”
If she could have melted into the wall, she would have.
Horst entered the room. “You’re making a fool of yourself, Jaeger.”
“The
only fool in the room is you.” Hauptsturmführer Jaeger whipped around and struck Horst on the cheek.
Anna covered her mouth to keep from crying out.
Horst stepped backward.
In her direction.
Hauptsturmführer Jaeger’s eyes widened. “Ah, there she is.” He grabbed her and pulled her from her hiding spot. Had he done the same to the other Jews today? He squeezed her upper arm until she bit her lip. “Maybe you were about to have some fun of your own. That’s why you didn’t want to go out.”
Horst laughed. This time, his performance fell flat. “Then why don’t you leave us to have our own good time?”
“Nein, she can celebrate with us.” He wrenched her arm as he pulled her down the hall to the living room.
“Slečna Zadoková? What on earth are you doing here?”
Anna froze. The woman used her real name. Her Jewish name.
Hauptsturmführer Jaeger yanked his date to his side. Patricie Kadlecová. An acquaintance from the music conservatory.
A line of sweat worked its way down Anna’s back. “Slečna Kadlecová, how good to see you again.”
Perhaps because of his state of inebriation, Hauptsturmführer Jaeger missed Patricie’s use of her name. He released his grip on Anna and addressed her friend. “You know this woman?”
“We went to the conservatory together.”
“Ah, another musician in our midst. What a delight.”
Behind Jaeger’s back, Anna mouthed to Patricie, “Please, don’t tell. Please.” She trembled like a small bird.
Horst came beside her. He didn’t touch her, but a current passed between them. “We won’t go out tonight, Jaeger. I’m not feeling well. You and Fraulein Kadlecová have a good time.”
“Be a man.”
Horst stiffened. “I’m not sure you know the definition of that word.”
“Then show me. You show me what a man looks like.”
Horst didn’t break off staring at Hauptsturmführer Jaeger.
Patricie gave him a side hug. “Let’s not bother these people. They don’t want to come with us. Leave them to themselves. We’ll have a good time without them.”
Hauptsturmführer Jaeger turned his attention back to Anna. “If you’re a musician, talented enough to study at the conservatory, why are you a maid?”
