The Good at Heart

by Ursula Werner

  Marina nodded and removed Frau Breckenmüller’s fingers from her lips. “Come, Rosie. Let’s get you some breakfast.” She looked at Rosie’s bare feet and frowned. “Even better, let’s get you dressed.”

  “Oooh, yes!” Rosie suddenly remembered Pimpanella’s eggs. “Come see the big surprise!”

  Her grandmother was talking on the phone as Rosie and Marina walked into the kitchen. Any other day, Rosie would have run over to Oma and demanded to talk to whoever was on the line (usually her opa), because the telephone was still a novelty. Very few families in Blumental had one in their house, and most people had to use the telephone at the post office if they wanted to make a call. But her opa was an important person in Berlin, so they got one. Mostly they used it to call him.

  Rosie wished Opa did not have to stay in Berlin to work while the rest of the family lived in Blumental, but as Oma often reminded her, everyone had to make sacrifices for the war. Long ago, when she was very little, they had all lived in Berlin. Then Sofia and Oma had almost died the night the bombs fell, and they moved to Blumental. Rosie didn’t remember anything about that night. Apparently Sofia didn’t either, because whenever Rosie asked about it, Sofia curled up into a little ball and whispered, “I don’t remember.”

  Pulling her mother past the telephone room, Rosie stopped at the kitchen table.

  “Look, Mutti.” She pointed at the basket. “Eggs!”

  Marina smiled hesitantly. “One, two, three . . . four eggs. That’s wonderful, Rosie. Nina, Rosamunde, and Hanni are working very hard.”

  “No, no, only two of the eggs are from Nina and Rosamunde,” Rosie interrupted. “The other two are from Pimpanella. They were right in her nest under the straw. Both of them.”

  “She probably stole them from the other chickens when they weren’t looking,” Lara said, shuffling into the kitchen in her slippers.

  “She did not! She laid those eggs all by herself.” Rosie ran over to her older sister and pummeled her in the stomach. Lara laughed and easily pushed Rosie away. Just then, Edith walked into the kitchen, her telephone conversation with Oskar ended.

  “What does Oskar say?” Marina asked. She placed a pot of milk on the stove. “What’s the news from Berlin?”

  “Oskar is in Fürchtesgaden, not Berlin,” Edith said. “Apparently the Führer felt the need for mountain air and asked the cabinet to join him for its weekly meeting.”

  “Hm. Sounds like our Führer, uprooting everyone from their normal lives because he ‘felt the need,’ ” Marina said with a sniff, just as the porch door flew open and Sofia dashed into the kitchen.

  “Irene Nagel’s cat had kittens!” she said.

  “Kittens!” Rosie thrust the basket of eggs into Edith’s hands. Kittens were fluffy and warm and bouncy. Like a ball made out of feathers. “Can we go see them, Mutti? Oma? Please, can we?” Rosie ran over to her mother and put on her saddest, most pleading face.

  “Actually, Rosie, your opa told me he needs your help with a special project this morning.” Edith put her arms on Rosie’s shoulders and addressed all three girls. “Everyone can help. We need to make a new flag for our window. A red, white, and blue one.”

  Marina looked up. So did Lara, who had been examining the fingernails on her right hand.

  “Those are the colors of France,” Lara said.

  * * *

  It turned out that the French army’s approach was not a complete fabrication of Captain Rodemann’s mind. One German intelligence dispatch reported sighting a small French battalion marching southeast to the German border, toward the lake. In their telephone conversation, Oskar told Edith that it was still many days away and probably not something to be overly concerned about. Nevertheless, he urged her to take precautions. Change the flag, he advised.

  The flag flying from the second-floor window of the Eberhardt home was, like every other flag displayed outside Blumental homes, the national flag of the Third Reich. One of the Führer’s earliest laws required all German homes to display that flag in a prominent location. In Blumental, unanimous compliance with this decree was less a demonstration of the town’s civic loyalty and unerring faith in the nation than a triumph of the efforts of the bürgermeister to safeguard his person.

  On the day the law went into effect, long before the war began, the mayor of Blumental, Bürgermeister Hans Munter, almost choked on the soft-boiled egg he had been enjoying with his morning newspaper. The government, he read, would hold the mayor of every city and town accountable for any transgression by any citizen. This was a shock to Munter, whose own mayoral approach to civic governance was laissez-faire, rooted in his conviction that everyone should be left alone and confrontation should be avoided at all costs. But could all of his citizens be trusted to comply with this law without his intervention? He didn’t know, and he didn’t want to find out.

  Through expeditious use of the municipality’s emergency fund, Munter soon ensured that full-size replicas of the national flag of the Third Reich were distributed to each Blumental family and hung prominently in front of every home. What Oskar feared, and what he shared with Edith over the phone, was that an invading French battalion might not feel generously inclined toward a town where swastikas flapped outside every window. Would it not be more prudent to substitute a French flag, or, if one could not be found, a white flag of surrender? Weighing strict compliance with the Führer’s edicts against concern for public safety—primarily the safety of his family—Oskar thought the balance tipped in favor of changing the flags.

  Edith agreed. After breakfast, she hurried over to the home of the Duponts, who had relatives in Paris, to share Oskar’s news and request their help. Digging into the supply of French flags they had saved from Bastille Day celebrations, the Dupont family generously donated them to many of their neighbors. Families that did not receive French flags borrowed white cloth diapers from families with babies. By lunchtime, Blumental had successfully transformed itself into an apparent Francophile oasis, and everyone awaited the possibility of French occupation with trepidation.

  * * *

  When Captain Rodemann, marching east from Blumental with his battalion, received a telegram containing the same report that prompted Oskar’s telephone call, he was so elated, he almost fell off his horse. The French army was finally marching toward the northern shore of the lake! Of course, if they were still in France, as the report indicated, it would be at least a week before they reached the Bodensee. They might head through the Black Forest or follow the Rhine along the Swiss border until it reached the lake. Either way, Rodemann was determined to intercept them and thus, as he imagined the consequences, to solidify his place in military history—first for restoring and holding the southern front and then for turning the tide of the war inexorably toward German victory. Veering west, the captain ordered his men to march at double time.

  Captain Rodemann and his troops reentered Blumental poised for battle. In fact, Rodemann was so intent upon his upcoming victory that he did not immediately notice the red, white, and blue stripes hanging on each building the battalion passed on its way down the main street. Nevertheless, the flags wove in and out of his consciousness with steady regularity, slowly but firmly knitting a pernicious banner of dissension and rebellion, a banner of popular support for the enemy. Captain Rodemann turned the corner to where he had built the perfect roadblock, where he had constructed out of tree trunks alone an impregnable barrier, and where now stood . . . nothing. He turned around and looked up the street he had just marched down. Flags flapped at him, mocked him, laughed at him in white, blue, and red. Captain Rodemann exploded in anger.

  * * *

  Rosie and Sofia had spent the morning staining a white cloth diaper with red currant and blackberry juices, trying to make a French flag for the upstairs window. They had just hung the finished product outside the second-floor dormer when their grandmother called them down to lunch.

  It was a quiet meal of fish with small yellow potatoes from Edith’
s garden. Rosie sat next to Sofia on the oak bench, opposite Lara, who insisted on sitting in her own chair. Rosie had eaten very quickly today because she wanted to get to Irene Nagel’s kittens. Irene had told Sofia there were five. Certainly no house needed that many cats. Sooner or later, Irene’s mother would be giving away some of those kittens, and Rosie and Sofia wanted to be first in line to claim one. Rosie fiddled with the lace curtains and plucked one of the African violets from the little potted plants on the windowsill. She pulled off its petals one by one and looked around the table.

  Her mother and grandmother were silent, but that often happened after Opa called. Sometimes he told them news about Rosie’s father, who was away fighting in France. He used to be away fighting in Russia, but then he got stuck in that Russian city, and every time Opa called, her mother grabbed the phone, and when she was done talking to Opa, she would bite her lip. She bit her lip all winter.

  Rosie looked to see if her mother was biting her lip now. But today, her mother was only pressing her lips together. Rosie jiggled her legs impatiently. Sofia’s plate still had two potatoes and a lot of fish on it. She kicked Sofia under the table. “Eat faster,” she urged.

  Noticing Rosie’s impatience, Edith stood up from her chair and walked over to the chocolate cabinet. “Tell you what, Rosie,” she said. “Why don’t you have a peppermint while you wait?”

  Rosie loved peppermints. She unwrapped this one from its crinkly pink paper and held it between her thumb and forefinger and licked it slowly to make it last longer. She only put the whole thing in her mouth later, when lunch was finally over and she needed her hands to dry the dishes. Sofia washed and Rosie dried, sweeping the dish towel over the wet plate at the same time that she swirled her tongue around the peppermint.

  Pecka pecka pecka. Rosie looked up when she heard the noise. It sounded like a woodpecker. A loud one, and very close. She usually only heard woodpeckers during walks through the Birnau forest with her mother. But there it was again. Rosie went to the kitchen window to try to see it, but at that moment, three things happened simultaneously: one of the empty milk bottles that was sitting on the front door stoop shattered, Sofia dropped a pot that she had been washing, and Marina came thundering down the stairs and through the kitchen, shouting, “Into the reeds! Now! Into the reeds!”

  The Eberhardt family response to air raids and other military dangers was the same as that of every family living along the lakefront: leave the house immediately and hide in the thicket of willow reeds on the shore. Though air raids were rare this far south, there had been a few bombings in nearby Friedrichshafen that had required them to put this escape plan into effect. The girls hated hiding in the reeds. It was wet and scary and uncomfortable to stand in the water motionless for up to an hour and a half. In the summer, the water was warm and home to leeches; in the winter, it was unbearably cold.

  In less than a minute, Edith and Lara were already outside the French doors and running down the lawn toward the lake. Neighbors all around were doing the same, shrieking and shouting and scrambling as quickly as possible to get to the relative safety of the thick, camouflaging reeds. Sofia was still near the sink, curling herself into a ball next to the pile of pots Rosie had just dried. Rosie knew that Sofia was trying to make herself as small as possible so that the danger would overlook her and move on. It had worked for her in Berlin.

  But Marina knew where to find her. “Out! Out!” Marina screamed, grabbing Sofia’s arm and pulling her up from the stone floor where she was cowering. She pushed Sofia’s stiff form out of the house, and then—awkwardly, because Sofia was getting too big for Marina to carry—gathered her up and ran haltingly down to the lake.

  Rosie recognized the look of panic on her mother’s face when she ran through the kitchen. The look said, Run! Now! For an instant, Rosie was confused because she did not understand why a woodpecker would be dangerous, but now there were other sounds coming up the street, sounds that Rosie had heard in Berlin at night, before they moved. Guns. Yes, Rosie concluded as her feet began to run, it must be gunfire that was peppering the stone houses. Rosie knew that machine guns meant follow the exit drill, and Rosie was very good at the exit drill.

  She had just reached the French doors heading to the backyard when she remembered Hans-Jürg. He was still upstairs in her bed. Hans-Jürg the bear had always been with Rosie. She was devoted to him, in part because he was the only other member of the family with brown eyes, just like hers. Rosie could not leave Hans-Jürg alone with gunfire going off all around him. So as Marina was running out of the house dragging Sofia behind her, Rosie ran through the living room to the staircase.

  Rosie knew, with each step upward, that she should not let herself feel scared or listen to the increasing volume of the machine-gun sounds, which meant that the soldiers, whoever they were, were now on their street, getting closer to their house. She should not, could not, let any of that into her mind. Instead, she thought about Hans-Jürg. Hans-Jürg. Hans, putting her right foot on one step, Jürg, her left foot on the next one. Hans, right, Jürg, left. Hans, Jürg. Hans, Jürg. At the top of the staircase, she half tripped over the old throw rug, put her hand down briefly to catch her balance, and ran to the left into her room. She could tell immediately that Hans-Jürg was grateful to her for coming back. He sat on the faded pink quilt, smiling at her with his thick-threaded, slightly crooked black mouth.

  Wrapping Hans-Jürg in her arms to protect him, Rosie ran back down through the house and yard, so quickly she did not have time to feel scared. She ran straight through her grandmother’s pansies, past the ripening cherry tree—where just yesterday she and Sofia had practiced spitting pits into the Breckenmüllers’ yard—over the molehills and through the back fence gate. It did not matter this time that she left it open.

  Rosie ran from the bullets, across the pebbles of the shallow beach, into the tall willow reeds, through the water, the mud sucking at her sandals. Unable to pull up her foot, she stopped, panting. She had ignored her terror until now. Now it clamped onto her rib cage and paralyzed her lungs. She had to fight to suck in air. Finally she began to sob and clutched her bear to her heaving chest.

  “Rosie!” her mother called out. Marina brushed aside willow stalks and thrust her way through the defiant sludge and water of the lake. “Shh, shh! I’m here, Rosie, I’m here.” Rosie felt her mother’s arms wrap around her and hold her tightly. She pressed her head into her mother’s body, burrowing her face into the coarse wool of her mother’s skirt. Gradually, the air Rosie breathed in became warm and minty, a reminder of her peppermint.

  “This is crazy,” Frau Dachmaier said as Marina and Rosie waded over to the group. “I thought the French were civilized. Why would they shoot at civilians?”

  The older Dachmaier boys, Boris and Jan, had broken off two of the longer reeds and were engaged in a mock machine-gun shootout, splashing about in the shallow sections of the beach. “Stop it!” Lara hissed at them. “Keep quiet!” She reached over, grabbed Boris’s reed, and snapped it in half. The boys glared at her in fury.

  “I . . . don’t . . . think . . . it’s . . . the . . . French . . . who . . . are . . . shooting.” Old Herr Schmidt spoke in a measured, ruminative way, as if he were one of the clocks that he had spent his lifetime fixing and could issue only one word per second. He shook his graying head for a moment, then looked over at Edith and raised his eyebrows, inviting her speculation.

  “Well, it can’t be the Russians, can it?” Frau Dachmaier continued. “They’ve never gotten this far south. Or west, for that matter.”

  Rosie watched her grandmother study Herr Schmidt’s face. “No,” Edith said finally. “It’s not the Russians either. There’s only one army battalion nearby, and it doesn’t belong to the enemy. It’s us. It’s Rodemann.”

  The neighbors fell silent and let Edith’s words float among the reeds.

  * * *

  Captain Rodemann was furious. The removal of the barricade constituted flagrant contempt f
or his authority, criminal disrespect for a military officer. There was no question that removal of this barrier aided and abetted the enemy in its incursion onto German soil. And there were all those French flags too, flapping from the town’s windows like derisive tongues taunting him as he passed by. The more the captain considered the situation, the more the whole thing looked like treason. It appeared that Blumental was a hitherto undiscovered haven for the Resistance. Someone would have to answer for this, someone visible to the entire community. The bürgermeister.

  On his way to the bürgermeister’s home, Rodemann allowed his men to fire their rifles and machine guns into rose gardens and playgrounds and living rooms, chasing everyone into hiding. If their weapons were somewhat indiscriminately discharged, Rodemann did not worry about it, for the residents of Blumental needed a lesson in the consequences of disloyalty. Eventually he found his target, for poor Hans Munter’s fringe of dwindling blond curls was not dense enough to camouflage him in the middle of his neighbor’s herd of sheep.

  * * *

  Captain Rodemann marched Hans Munter at riflepoint through the town and up the hill to the Catholic church. It was a steep hill, and Hans found that he could do little better than stumble his way up—years of sausages and strawberry schnapps had taken their toll, and he seemed to have lost complete control of his legs.

  Hans Munter had spent his entire life successfully avoiding his country’s wars—too young for the first and exempted from the second because, as bürgermeister, he was in charge of sending a roster of military-eligible Blumental men to Berlin, and he conveniently forgot to add his own name. He had read with sorrow and heartache many of those same names on monthly casualty lists sent to the town, and personally visited each family that had lost a young son or father to offer his condolences. Each spring, on Remembrance Day, he lit candles for those lost men. Thus did Hans try to give to the war effort without actually offering his life.