Wildflowers of Terezin

by Robert Elmer

  "Me."

  "No, no, that's not what I meant. It's too dangerous for you.I was thinking of someone else you might know. It won't take long."

  "I can't think of anyone else. I told you I'll do it."

  He looked at her and frowned, as if trying to figure out how to win this argument. But he could not.

  "So, I'll see you at six?" she asked, steeling her voice once again to keep it from sounding as shaky as she felt.

  He sighed and shook his head.

  "You are one determined woman."

  "What exactly do you want me to do?" she asked.

  He frowned again. "You would just be riding along, the way a nurse would do. If anyone stops us, we can just be having an emergency, and you can do all the things an emergency calls for. I'll make sure that you're safe."

  "And how exactly would you do that?" she wanted to know.

  "Well, ah . . ."

  As he spoke another nurse hurried down the hall toward them, looking flustered with her peaked white nurse's cap falling off to one side.

  "Hanne!" Ann-Grete panted for breath as she caught up with them. "Hanne, I'm so glad you didn't leave, yet. He called from Roskilde."

  For a moment Hanne wasn't sure who "he" might be. But really there could be no doubt. She just wished Steffen wasn't standing so close by, and looking curious at that.

  "So Aron hasn't left for Sweden, yet." Hanne put on her best professional voice and hoped for the best. She wasn't sure how advisable it was for him to call from anywhere in Danmark, though. Ann-Grete leaned close enough to almost whisper.

  "Apparently he's still hiding in someone's basement in Roskilde, and he really needs to get out."

  "Yes, don't they all. Did he say why he was calling here? Does he think we can help him?"

  "He asked for you, Hanne." Ann-Grete glanced at Steffen with a nervous smile. "I didn't know what to tell him."

  "But you told him I was still here?"

  "I couldn't lie. I told him I would pass along the message."

  "So you did." Hanne groaned quietly and scratched her head, not sure what to say next. Yes, she wanted Aron to be safe, the same way she wanted all the people in the hospital basement to be safe. And yes, she couldn't deny she'd had feelings for Aron—once. But after their last minutes together in the synagogue, she just wasn't sure. Her time with Pastor Steffen had only confused the issue even more.

  Even if she had the chance, could she and Aron once again be the couple her mother had always wanted, with all the grandchildren that went along with such an arrangement? Hanne couldn't say.

  "He said he's going to get here as soon as he can," added Ann-Grete. "That he's going crazy in hiding."

  "As soon as he can?" Hanne couldn't believe it, and tried not to raise her voice. "Did he say when that might be? Why would he come here?"

  Ann-Grete shook her hand and held up her hands, as if she was scared of being scolded. "All he said was that if you're still here, he has to see you. Oh, and he said that you need to go with him to Sweden."

  "Has to, need to. This is crazy. He really told you all this?"

  By this time Steffen had drifted away a few steps, looking as if he was politely avoiding a conversation obviously not intended for his ears. But by the way he glanced over every now and again, she could tell he was listening.

  What to say? Her stomach tightened into a knot. At least she'd missed the call. Or maybe it would have been better if she had spoken with Aron, after all. Then she could have told him not to come.

  "What are you going to do?" asked Ann-Grete, looking from Hanne to Steffen as if she recognized the dilemma hanging over her head. Hanne wrung her hands and turned in a circle.

  "I don't know," she finally answered. "All I know is that I'm not going to Sweden. Not yet. He doesn't understand there's too much for me to do here."

  "But other people can do what you're doing," argued Ann- Grete. "You don't have to be the only one to stick your neck out."

  "She's right." Steffen cut in, though it was not his place to do so. "You shouldn't be the one to put yourself in danger. I shouldn't have asked you to help. I'm sorry."

  "Please don't apologize. I'm in a safe apartment with a safe ID card, and I'm not in danger, all right?" Hanne held up a finger for emphasis and looked at them both. "And even if I was somehow in danger, how about if you both give me the courtesy of letting me decide when I should go—or even if I should? I don't need other people telling me that. Not Aron, and certainly not either of you."

  Ann-Grete looked as if she had been slapped, and it hurt Hanne to see. Still she turned to go, then stopped and turned one more time.

  "But thank you for telling me, Ann-Grete. I'm sorry. I don't mean to yell. It's not your fault, all this, after all. Pastor, I will see you at six."

  She hoped her extra-firm tone of voice might leave no doubt about her intentions to remain here at Bispebjerg. She would care for the sick and injured, and she would continue to work until every last Jewish person had been taken safely across the Sound to Sweden. Even then, she might not leave.

  Besides, she meant every word of what she said about not having others tell her what to do. She was a big girl, after all.She could take care of herself. And why should she allow the Germans—or anyone else—to decide her life this way? This would be her personal form of protest—staying alive and staying put, doing her job and not running for safety. Not that she faulted anyone else for doing what they needed to do. She simply knew that she had been placed here for such a time as this. Why couldn't everyone else understand what she knew most deeply in her heart?

  As she stalked away, heels clicking on the hall's polished tiles, she heard Steffen ask Ann-Grete "Who's Aron?"

  She didn't wait to hear Ann-Grete's answer, though perhaps she should have told him before this. Perhaps she still would. Either way, she wasn't eager to have Aron Overgaard show up uninvited at Bispebjerg, especially not if he was still intent on having her accompany him to Sweden. No, that certainly would not do.

  On the other hand, she almost had to laugh at the idea of seeing Aron hiding under a hold of fish, as some of their refugees had already been forced to do. Aron, who hated the thought of getting his hands dirty or his ties wrinkled. Aron, who always had to be in control of his own agenda, as well as the agendas of everyone around him. For a moment she wondered how he might be holding up under the stress of these past days. It would certainly not be good for his high blood pressure.

  I'm sorry, Mor, she thought as she turned off toward one of the tunnel entrances. It's not going to happen.

  And under no circumstances would she entertain the idea of escaping to Sweden with Aron Overgaard. Not while she had anything to say about it.

  Among other things, right now she needed to check on the medication of one of the little girls down there who was suffering from asthma. Who else cared about these people the way she did? Living and sleeping in a damp basement did nothing to help the poor little girl's condition, and she should be moved as soon as possible.

  But now came the hard part: deciding who would stay, and who would be able to escape today. She hoped it might not be a permanent decision, and she assumed everyone would eventually be allowed a chance. At least the money she and Steffen had gathered would help.

  But still Hanne sighed and leaned against the metal stair railing, gathering strength to go downstairs with the kind of cheery face and attitude the refusees needed. So Steffen thought she was determined, did he? He had no idea how much she quivered inside and would not recognize her bleak doubt if it hit him in the face.

  Determined? Maybe. But she wondered how the unenviable job of playing God had fallen on her shoulders.

  21

  BISPEBJERG HOSPITAL, KØBENHAVN

  TUESDAY EVENING, 5 OKTOBER 1943

  If one is forever cautious, can one remain a human being?

  —ALEKSANDR I. SOLZHENITSYN

  All right, now!" Hanne held up her hands and tried not to bump her head on the ambu
lance ceiling. "I need everyone's attention, please."

  Six frightened refugees huddled in back behind the curtain separating the driver from the rest of the ambulance.They'd arranged for a grandmother and her son, his wife, and three young teens—a boy and two girls. If they could have fit more, they would have.

  Steffen kept the vehicle idling, and a wary eye out for any approaching traffic. While still in the Bispebjerg parking area, however, she assumed they were safe. Perhaps. For now. She turned to the driver. "Steffen?"

  "Yes, right." Steffen cleared his throat. "Hanne is going to dress you kids up a bit for the trip."

  Hanne held up her jar of theatrical blood as he continued explaining.

  "This is the same thing that actors paint on their faces or limbs. Dramatic, like Herod and Cleopatra in The Idealist."

  No one reacted.

  "You know, Kaj Munk?" Steffen softened his voice a bit."You've heard of his plays, haven't you?"

  Their blank looks betrayed the fact that this audience might never have heard of the Danish pastor and dramatist.

  "Oh, well." He shrugged. "Doesn't matter. All you need to know is that if we're stopped, you adults under the blanket need to keep completely still, and you three with the makeup just need to groan a bit and look injured. Got it?"

  This time the young actors nodded seriously, because their lives depended on it. Hanne dipped a wooden tongue depressor into the jar of sticky, oozing red and nodded to her first victim.

  "You've got a head injury from an accident with a delivery truck," she told the boy, who looked perhaps thirteen or fourteen. "Or how about with a bus? Can you do this? Let me hear you groan."

  The boy looked around at the others, as if embarrassed.

  "Come on." Hanne dabbed a little more blood on the boy's forehead. "A little louder. You're in pain!"

  So he finally complied, but didn't seem nearly as enthusiastic as his sister. If anything, she carried the groaning thing a little too far.

  "All right, perfect." Hanne ripped the collar of his shirt a bit for good measure. His mother would thank her, later."You're going to get a job in the movies when this is all over."

  Hanne finished painting the faces and arms of her three patients—the boy who winced whenever she applied another dab of red, and his two sisters. "Two of you lay down, and one try to sit up. Remember, you're seriously injured."

  She looked up at Steffen, hoping this idea didn't turn out to be as crazy as it seemed. All they needed was for one thing to go wrong.

  He nodded back at them. "Let's go?"

  He placed the ambulance in gear, jerking only a little, and eased them away from the loading area and out to the wide Tuborgvej, Tuborg Road. Their only problem was obvious.Because instead of heading toward the hospital, now they headed away, toward another rendezvous on the coast.Steffen looked nervously in his mirrors as he steered north and east.

  "What am I going to say if we do get stopped?" he wondered aloud. Hanne couldn't think of a good answer.

  So they drove on in silence, tension in the air. No one made a sound except the occasional nervous cough. With six Jewish refugees in the back of their ambulance, anything could happen. And as they sped down Tuborgvej in the direction of the coast, Hanne almost wasn't surprised when they slowed to a stop on the outskirts of Gentofte, on the northern outskirts.

  "What's going on?" asked one of the sisters. "Why are we stopping?"

  Hanne turned to them again.

  "I see a couple of soldiers up ahead, checking traffic.Remember, you're in pain. But don't overdo it."

  A little voice came from the teenage boy, propped up next to the two who lay across a single stretcher.

  "I think we should sound the siren," he said. "Maybe we'll get away more quickly."

  Hanne looked over at Steffen, who clenched his teeth.

  "Or maybe we'll get noticed a little more quickly," he added.

  They needn't have worried about being noticed. A moment later, two German guards marched up and demanded to see their identification.

  "Papieren, bitte," barked the first soldier, holding out his hand and snapping a finger with impatience. He couldn't have been more than twenty years old.

  "We're transporting these people," Steffen told them, sounding rather panicked. "It's an emergency!"

  So it was. A second guard came up from the other side and shined his flashlight at them. Hanne did her best to appear frantic as she wrapped the boy's arm in a gauze bandage. She was careful to squeeze a large puddle of the costume blood out at just the right time.

  "We've got to get them to this hospital, quickly!" Hanne told them, adding as much urgency as she dared. "It looks like they're losing too much blood!"

  She nudged the boy, who gave an appropriately soft groan.Good. Even so, the guard seemed to take his time examining their identification papers, each folded into a small pouch, like a passport. He held up Steffen's to the light of his flashlight, comparing the real face from his passport.

  "I didn't know pastors drove ambulances," said the young German. "This is not Falck?"

  Of course the German would know about Falck, the Danish rescue and fire service. Maybe he'd never seen any other kind of ambulance.

  "No," Steffen replied with a straight face. "It's a private service for the hospital. You know what I mean, of course."

  Of course. Perhaps the guard would not know there was no such thing. And as he next turned to Hanne's I.D. and frowned at it in the light from his torch.

  "You are a nurse at Bispebjerg, Miss Hansen?"

  Hanne almost had to force herself to respond to her new "Danish" name, but managed to nod as she held to her patient's wrist and counted the pulse. The boy's heart was racing, by the way, but for the same reason as was her own.

  "Really, this is an emergency," insisted Steffen, his voice agitated. "Surely you can see. We must be on our way."

  "To the hospital?" asked the guard.

  "Yes, yes." Steffen made a show of placing the car back into gear with a terrible grinding noise, then stalled the ambulance.

  "Then you are heading the wrong direction." The German pointed back at the way they had come.

  "What?" When Steffen gasped, Hanne knew he didn't know what to say next. So Hanne turned back and made a show of desperation, waving her hands angrily and slapping Steffen on the shoulder.

  "You idiot!" She raised her voice to a yell. "I told you to turn left, but you said you knew where you were going! I knew we shouldn't have listened to you! And now look what's happened! Someone's going to die back here because of your stubbornness."

  Hanne wasn't completely sure if the Germans followed every word of her rapid-fire Danish, but she knew they would understand her tone. And sure enough, the nearest guard stared at the exchange and burst out laughing. A moment later he motioned for two more guards to come join in the joke.

  "Very funny," whispered Steffen, under his breath. "Now can we get out of here, please?"

  Still the Germans seemed in no particular hurry. But after some discussion and chuckling the other two finally backed away, returning to their posts by the side of the road, while the first guard slowly handed back their cards, and Steffen restarted the stalled ambulance.

  "Well," he told the German, "we'll just be going, then."

  "Nein!" The guard grabbed Steffen's steering wheel before they could get away, then pointed to himself and his nearby motorcycle. "I know where is the hospital. You will follow me now. Verstehen sie? Understand?"

  What else could Steffen do but nod? Still laughing, the guard stepped over to his cycle, started it up, and waved through a cloud of exhaust for them to follow. Steffen quickly rolled up his window while their passengers groaned. But Hanne patted her patient.

  "You can stop groaning, for now," she told him. But she wanted to groan herself as Steffen turned the ambulance in the middle of the road and obeyed the guard's directive, heading back the way they came.

  "What are we going to do now?" she wondered, trying
to make out the time on her watch. "We can't go back to the hospital. We need to have these people to the beach at Tårbæk in less than an hour. They may not get another chance."

  "I know all that." Now Steffen set his jaw as they followed the helpful soldier through the outskirts of the city, back the wrong way. He pressed his lips together as they passed through Skovshoved toward a major roundabout.

  And then without warning he yanked the wheel over, sending them spinning through the roundabout, around a corner, and into an unmarked alley.

  "Hold on!" he told them, though it might have been more useful if he'd said so a moment earlier. As it was, Hanne flew out of her front seat, nearly ending up on Steffen's lap.Everyone in back tumbled at least as much as they cried out.But Steffen accelerated through the darkness, screeching around yet another corner, and flying out into the clear.

  "Please!" cried the older woman, but now they sped through empty lanes and back roads on their way back to the coast, avoiding, of course, the place where they had encountered the German roadblock.

  "Are you sure we should have done this?" wondered Hanne, looking over at their driver. "Now they know our names."

  He almost smiled, but kept his eyes on the road.

  "Maybe so. But what did we do? If they go to the trouble to look us up, we just explain how easy it is to get lost out here."

  Hanne shook her head as she looked back to check on their passengers. And she wondered about the man who now drove six more Jews to safety, risking his own life in the process.Why? Even just a few days ago, she would never have expected this of him. Serious? Yes. Conservative? Definitely.But something else now drew her to him—until he broke into her thoughts like a tour guide.