by Kate Hewitt
Johanna stared at her blankly. “Useful?”
Ingrid’s eyes glittered as she gazed back steadily at her. “For the cause.” Johanna’s gaze remained blank as she tried to make sense of her words. “So now,” Ingrid continued, “the question is, will you join us?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Birgit
Schanzlalm Prison, Salzburg, May 1942
Birgit had lost count of the days, weeks, even, and most likely months. They all blurred together, an endless landscape of gray, punctuated by the arrival of her guard with her paltry meal—once in the morning, and again in the evening. The rest of the time she paced the confines of her small concrete cell and tried to keep herself from going mad.
There was one window, high above her, and through it she could see a small square of sky. Nothing else—no trees or buildings—nothing but sky, like a blank canvas, sometimes blue, sometimes gray, sometimes orange or violet, at the beginning or end of the day. She didn’t know what she would have done without that slice of sky. The sight of it—the world outside, still there, still existing—kept her anchored to reality, if only just.
How long had she been in the Schanzlalm? At first she’d tried to keep track of the days, making a mark on the wall with a piece of straw. The arrest on that snowy slope had been in late January—a blur of pain and fear as the dogs had raced towards them and Franz had turned around, a wild look on his face, his hands held up in the air. She could tell he’d thought of making a run for it, but he’d realized he wouldn’t have got very far. Better to be captured than shot in the back. Maybe.
That was the last time she’d seen him.
She and Lotte had been taken to a prison in Innsbruck, they’d given their names, been stripped of their belongings, and then, for a few weeks, judging by the marks she had made, it had seemed as if they had simply been forgotten. No one visited them, or charged them, or spoke to them at all. They were given food and left alone, in adjacent cells, so at least they’d been able to whisper encouragement to one another. Birgit had been soothed by Lotte’s prayers, her lovely voice rising like an offering as she’d gone through the daily offices, only falling silent when a guard began to shout.
But then, about a week after they’d been arrested, guards had hauled them both to their feet and marched them into the covered back of a truck. They’d clutched each other, too dazed to do anything but offer reassurances that they were, so far, unharmed.
“I’ve spoken to no one,” Lotte had whispered as Birgit had put her arms around her.
“Nor have I.” Her sister looked so young without her habit, her blond hair having been shorn for her novitiate, but now it bloomed around her face in a ragged halo. Like Birgit she was wearing a shapeless dress of coarse gray cloth. The guards had taken everything from them.
When the truck had stopped outside the prison in Salzburg, both she and Lotte had stared at each other in surprise. They were only a stone’s throw from the house on Getreidegasse, yet it felt like a world away. It was.
In they went to the Schanzlalm, asked again to give their names, address, and date of birth before they were herded into separate cells, this time not near enough to hear each other. Birgit had never felt so abandoned, so alone.
Days, weeks, and months had passed, an agony of slowness and unknowing. Twice Birgit had received precious parcels from her older sister, which had grounded her in the same way that sliver of sky did. Both times they’d been opened and carelessly rewrapped by the guards, but Birgit had hardly minded that.
She’d undone the string and unwrapped the brown paper—saving both—and marveled at the treasures inside: a bottle of jam, another of beef broth, a set of embroidered handkerchiefs, and an old sweater she’d used to wear that was heavy and warm. The sight of all that bounty had made her weep, both for missing her family and with incredulous gratitude for the guards who had been willing to pass it all on. Was this what she had been reduced to—feeling grateful not to be cheated or robbed?
Johanna had included a letter in the parcel, that had been necessarily brief, in order to be allowed through: Dearest Birgit, We are all well, as are all our friends. We pray for you every day.
A few weeks after, another parcel had come, with the same message. Who, Birgit wondered, did her sister mean by friends? The nuns of Nonnberg Abbey? Ingrid and her group? Werner?
She found herself thinking often about Werner, wondering if he had learned of her fate, if he was safe on the Russian Front, or at least as safe as a soldier could be. Was he continuing to fight, to kill, or had he found some way to resist, even if quietly, secretly, in the privacy of his own mind? She thought of him, she prayed for him; she knew she still loved him. She thought she always would, imperfect as he was. Weren’t they all? Perhaps it had to take the witnessing of great evil to realize what you truly wanted to be, and whether you were capable of achieving it.
As the weeks passed, winter had melted into spring, marked by the fetid warmth in the dank air and the sound of the birdsong, and still Birgit had spoken to no one, save for a few words to the guard who brought her food—a bowl of watery gray porridge in the morning, and another of thin barley soup in the evening, sometimes with bread, often not. She did not know where Lotte was; she had no idea what was happening to anyone anywhere, and the ignorance was enough to make her want to scream or claw at the concrete walls of her cell, eight feet by eight feet of bare cement and a bit of dirty straw—her home for what she suspected had been at least three months, and might as well be forever.
Then, in what Birgit thought had to be May, something finally happened. A guard opened the door to her cell and summoned her with a stern look and a brisk beckoning of his hand. Birgit followed him, stepping out of the cell, her heart hammering, her legs trembling. She had not stepped out of her cell in months. The liberation was overwhelming, but it also filled her with fear. Where was the guard taking her?
Not far, as it happened; they walked down a couple of corridors and then into a room that felt as if it came from another world. There was a carpet on the floor, an intricate Turkish design in blues and reds, and a table of polished wood with several cushioned chairs. All of it made Birgit gape. She’d gone without such luxuries for so long she’d almost forgotten they existed.
“Please, sit down.” The guard had left, closing the door behind him, and the one man in the room, seated in one of the chairs, smiled at her with what seemed like genuine friendliness. Birgit stared back, bewildered and suspicious, for on his collar she saw the silver gleam of the Totenkopf. Yet his face looked both intelligent and kind, hazel eyes glinting with interest and humor behind a pair of spectacles. He crossed one leg neatly over the other and laced his fingers across his knee.
“You must be thirsty,” he remarked. “I have had tea brought.”
Tea? Birgit simply stared. This had to be a trick.
“Please.” The man gestured to the chair opposite him. “Sit down.”
Slowly, unsure if she even had a choice, Birgit walked to the chair and sat down gingerly on it. The cushion felt ludicrously soft beneath the rough weave of her shapeless prison dress. The officer smiled at her.
“My name is Oberleutnant Wolf.” Birgit nodded jerkily. “And you are Birgit Eder.” Another nod, and then a guard came in with a tea tray that he put, rather clumsily, on the table between them. “Shall I pour?” Oberleutnant Wolf asked, and Birgit fought a sudden, ridiculous urge to laugh.
“I don’t know why you are being so kind to me,” she remarked, her voice sounding rusty, as he poured them fragrant, steaming cups of tea.
He glanced at her, his eyebrows raised. “Because I wish to help you.”
“Help me?” She let out a disbelieving laugh. “I have been kept in a concrete cell for the last three months, Oberleutnant. How exactly do you want to help me?”
“If you tell me everything you know, it will go easier for you. I can make sure it does.”
“Ah, of course.” Birgit nodded slowly as she folded her a
rms. At least he wasn’t threatening her with torture, she supposed. Yet. “What is it you wish to know, exactly?”
“Why were you traveling so far from Salzburg?” His voice was pleasant, his expression almost gentle. In a strange way, he reminded her of her father—that slightly quizzical, whimsical look, the tilt of his head, the kindness in his eyes. A lump formed in Birgit’s throat.
“To visit my aunt in Ladis. It is a small village. Do you know it?”
“Someone has already spoken to your aunt and uncle,” Oberleutnant Wolf told her. “They said you had come unexpectedly.”
Birgit remained silent. She supposed she could not blame her relatives, whom she barely knew, for trying to save themselves. It jolted her that the Gestapo had been so thorough. Was that why they’d left her for so long, so they could amass evidence against her? Perhaps this oberleutnant had spoken to her family here, just a few blocks away. Surely he must have. “I know you were trying to get the Jew to Switzerland,” he told her in a patient voice. “Why are you lying to me?”
“If you already know, why are you asking?”
“How many others were there? That you helped to get across?”
“None,” she replied. “He was the first.” She could only hope he did not know about her other activities. If he did, she would surely be executed.
“And where did you get the car?”
“From my boyfriend,” Birgit lied instinctively. She would not betray Ingrid. “Werner Haas. He is in the First Mountain Division, and has been commended by the Führer himself. He let me borrow the car to visit my aunt, but he didn’t know of anything else, of course. He is loyal to the Führer.” She met the man’s gaze without flinching, but she saw knowledge in his eyes and it frightened her. Why had she mentioned Werner?
“Ah yes, Hauptmann Haas.” His mouth twisted in what looked like sympathy, or perhaps a parody of it. He may have looked kind, but she knew she could not trust him. She had not touched her tea.
“What do you mean by that?” How could he know about Werner? And yet how could she be surprised? These men, they knew everything.
The man let out a heavy sigh, as if the question—and its answer—burdened or even saddened him. Birgit knotted her hands together in her lap. “Oberleutnant Haas was arrested several months ago,” he told her.
Her mouth dropped open. “What? Why?”
“For treasonous activity against the Reich. He failed to obey orders.” He met her gaze coolly, and Birgit realized that he knew far more than she did. Had Werner refused to murder more Russians? She was glad if he had, fiercely so, and yet… arrested.
“It was he,” he added, his head cocked as his gaze scanned her face, “who told us about Sister Kunigunde. Not willingly, I must admit. Sadly it took some time.”
Birgit stared at him for a moment, his words, so pleasantly spoken, taking a few seconds to penetrate her dazed mind. Then she lowered her head so he wouldn’t be able to see the torment in her eyes and concentrated on taking deep breaths. “Did you kill him?” she asked eventually, when she trusted herself to speak.
“He has been sent to a camp. As was your Jew.” He made a little moue of sympathy that she caught out of the corner of her eye. “I thought you’d want to know.”
Birgit forced herself to lift her head. “I did. Thank you,” she said, although what she really wanted to do was fly at him, rail at him and pummel him until he was insensible and bloody as Werner must have been… but, no. She could not let herself think about that. Not now, when she had to be in control, on her guard. “What of my family?” she asked, since he seemed so inclined to impart news.
“What of them?”
“Did you speak to them?”
“Yes.” He recrossed his legs as he took a sip of tea. “Your father is completely witless.”
“He was taken in by the Gestapo for no reason at all and has never been the same since,” Birgit returned sharply. “But perhaps you already know that.”
Oberleutnant Wolf inclined his head in acknowledgement. “Your sister and mother had nothing of interest to tell us.” He spread his hands wide. “We are not unreasonable people, Fräulein. We do not arrest without cause. We do not wish to punish or even annoy innocent people who do their best to serve the Reich.”
She said nothing.
“What of the car?” he pressed. “It did not belong to the hauptmann.”
“How do you know?”
He shrugged. “I know.” She stayed silent, and he sighed. “Fräulein Eder, it really would be better if you simply told me. Whose car was it? We will find them eventually, you know. It only hurts you to keep the information to yourself.”
“I don’t know whose car it was,” she said, truthfully. Ingrid had never told her. “There was a woman in a bookshop in Aigen.” She lifted her chin and met his gaze directly. She could be bold now; what did she have to lose, after all? The worst had already happened. If she was tortured and killed, so be it. She could accept such a fate now far more than she’d been able to when she’d been free. “I never knew her name. She arranged it for me.”
The oberleutnant’s eyes narrowed. “A bookshop in Aigen? What was the name of it?”
“I don’t remember.”
He shook his head. “You’re lying.”
“I can’t tell you what I don’t know. They make it that way, so you can’t be forced to give away secrets.”
“How did you know about her?” She hesitated, and he continued tiredly, “I will find out one way or the other. You may be sure of that.”
She couldn’t give up Ingrid to them, and possibly the whole resistance cell. And yet Birgit feared she was not strong enough to hold out.
“Fräulein…”
“Werner told me about her.” Surely that was believable, and they would not punish him further, if he was already in one of their wretched camps. Even so guilt curdled Birgit’s stomach. What if she’d made it worse for him? She could not bear the thought, yet she could not indict anyone else who might still go free.
“How did you know how to contact this woman?”
“I was to go to the bookshop and ask for a book of poetry. Vott lieben Gott und Anderes”—Rilke’s Stories of God—one of the volumes her father had loved. She met the oberleutnant’s gaze unblinkingly, amazed at how calmly she could lie, the words bubbling to her lips before she’d even thought of them, spoken in such a sure voice she almost believed herself.
He pressed his lips together. “And then?”
“And then this woman would contact me, usually by a written message. And I would write back.”
“So you never saw her?”
Birgit hesitated, then said, “Once.” She thought it might strain credibility to insist she’d never even seen the woman’s face.
“And what did she look like?”
“Blond hair, blue eyes, medium height.” The opposite of Ingrid. “As far as I can recall.”
“So you sent her a message, asking for a car, and you saw her only the one time.” Birgit nodded, and he raised his eyebrows. “And based on this rather flimsy acquaintance, she gave you a car plus the petrol, which as you know is severely rationed, to drive it hundreds of kilometers?”
“She wanted to help.”
He was silent for a few moments, and then, slowly, deliberately, he shook his head. With a sinking feeling Birgit realized he hadn’t believed any of her lies. She’d been stupid to think he had, to think she’d been that clever. She looked away, struggling not to give in to despair, or worse, tears. She knew they wouldn’t do her any good now.
“You know, Fräulein,” he said after a moment, his voice strangely soft and sad, “I am familiar with Rilke, as well.” He paused, and then quoted:
“Let all things happen to you—beauty and fear.
Just keep going. Nothing is final.”
He paused again, cocking his head. “Do you know that verse?”
“It’s from the Book of Hours,” Birgit answered, and he smiled.
&nbs
p; “Yes. You know your Rilke, as well.”
“My father read him.”
“I often think of that phrase—beauty and fear, both together. It holds so much, doesn’t it?”
Birgit stared at him, utterly unsure what point he was trying to make yet knowing she still needed to be on her guard. “I suppose.”
“And we have to let each happen to us,” he continued musingly. “We have no choice in the matter. We must simply let it flow over us, beauty and fear, both or either, and pray we don’t drown.”
“I have no choice,” Birgit couldn’t keep from replying a bit sharply. “You seem to have many choices, Oberleutnant.”
He gave her a small, sad smile. “Ah, but that is where you are wrong. In many ways, I have as little liberty as you do. You may not see my chains, but they are there.”
Birgit frowned, searching his face as if looking for clues. What was he trying to tell her?
“I wanted to be able to help you, Fräulein,” he said quietly, his gaze boring intently into hers. “But you have lied to me and I cannot pass on such flimsy untruths to my superiors. Surely you see that? I am as trapped as you are in this manner.”
Birgit opened her mouth and then closed it. She realized she believed him; in his own way, he’d wanted to make her burden a little easier. Even so, she would not tell him any truth, no matter what it cost. “What will happen to me?” she asked finally. “And my sister?”
He sighed, seeming disappointed by her refusal, and then he pushed away from the table to press a button on the wall. “Please,” she said. “You must know. What will happen to us?”
“It is out of my hands,” the oberleutnant told her regretfully, and then the guard came to take her back to her cell. She had not taken even one sip of her tea.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Lotte
July 1942
