by Sara Young
He heard my steps and turned. I nodded and lifted the basket, made a face as if to say, Look what they've got me doing, and at my stage. I flashed him a smile bright with sheer desperation.
And he smiled back.
He raised his hand—half wave, half salute. And he smiled. People see what they expect to see. You just have to allow them to see it.
I passed him—so close I was sure he could smell the sweat coursing down my back.
On the street, I headed away from the main gate. The instant my back was to the guard, my bravado vanished. The pavement shimmered dangerously, my legs threatened to buckle, the blood in my veins felt papery as though I were going to faint. With each step I imagined the guard's hands on my neck. I wanted to run but I forced myself to walk. To saunter. The sidewalk ran the length of the property—three hundred meters from the gate at least—until finally I could turn the corner onto the main street. There I dropped the basket and fell against the trunk of an elm, shaking hard.
I heard the sound of an engine; something rough—a jeep. I crossed the road and pressed myself into the privet hedge there. The branches tore at the skin of my arms and legs and the back of my neck—but they gave way. The shrubs were so dense they held me up—otherwise I might have collapsed. The jeep passed, four soldiers in it. It didn't slow down.
I wedged myself farther into the shrubbery. Of course they would find me, but if Karl came first ... He would come. He had heard me and he would come.
I snapped off branches until I'd made a tunnel through the hedge to watch for him. The trip took forty minutes; if he had left immediately, he might be here soon. Before the dogs.
A truck passed. Two cars—not military. I watched, tense, my legs aching. There were no cars for a long while. Then the dairy cart, with its big metal cans of milk clanging. I eased myself down, felt the sharp branches scrape my legs. And then I heard it: the heavy, gliding purr of a Mercedes. The car was dark and sleek, but from this distance, through the branches, I couldn't tell anything else. I clawed closer to the pavement. No—it was two-toned gray, not black. The car roared by. Another jeep passed—this one braked as it turned the corner, as if it might be entering the home.
And then I heard it again—like an oiled growl, coming fast. I peered at the car—dark, dark enough to be black. It came closer and I saw the grille that always seemed to be leering. I scrambled out.
It was Karl.
SIXTY-ONE
"Drive!"
Karl drove. "What happened?"
"Drive!" I pitched myself over, my head almost on Karl's lap, out of sight, but I imagined the hot breath of wolves on my neck. "Drive!"
He drove, but it didn't feel fast enough. And then I felt him brake. I raised my head. We were turning onto the road to the sheep farm. "No. Keep driving!"
"Look behind us—do you see anyone coming? No one can see us."
"But—"
"Cyrla, you're nine months pregnant. We have to stop and think. Make a plan."
He parked behind the barn. "You're bleeding. What happened?" He began to dab at my face, but I brushed him off and got out and hurried inside. I made Karl close the barn door and slide the bolt. Then I made him open it again so I could keep watch.
"Cyrla, try to be calm. Did you ever tell anyone about this place?"
"No, but—"
"Neither did I. So it's safe. Sit down and tell me what happened."
He led me to the pile of feed bags he had stuffed with straw for us long ago and eased me down and held me. I told him everything that had happened, and he only nodded and asked questions and held me tighter. My eyes never left the barn door.
"All right," Karl said. He took out his handkerchief and began to clean my face gently, as if my scrapes were the worst thing that had happened and we had all the time in the world. He tipped my face back and began to dab at my neck.
I grabbed his hand. "Karl, they know. What am I going to do?"
"I don't know yet. For now, you're going to stay here and rest. I'll go find out what I can."
"Wait. You're leaving?"
"I have to. You'll be safe here. Get some water from the stream—"
"When can you come back?"
"There's a big cocktail party tonight. I'll have to make an appearance and be introduced around. It would be noticed if I weren't there. Afterward, they'll all be drinking and playing skat—I won't be missed then."
"Not until then?"
"No one will look for you here. Try to sleep. I'll find out what's going on. I'll come up with a plan."
He tried to rise, but I held his arm. "Karl, Eva found out. I have to leave."
"Maybe. Yes, probably. But not in broad daylight. I'll be back by eight. Go to the stream and get water. There might be strawberries by now—do you remember where we saw the plants? I have to go now."
He kissed me twice. Then he left.
When he was gone, a strange calm settled over me. Every hour or so I walked to the stream, drank cold water, found tiny wild strawberries, and ate them. But mostly I lay on the straw in the barn, thinking of all the other times I'd lain here, thinking of how this place more than any other was my home. Thinking of how I would never see it again. I plucked a tuft of wool from a post beside me and inhaled the scent of lanolin, knowing I would never wear a sweater again without thinking of Karl. Above me, swallows cut endless arcs to their nests in the eaves, leaving trails of dust motes swirling in their wake, witness to the exquisite grace of free things.
The baby kicked hard, demanding my attention. I lifted my blouse and followed the liquid wriggle of his course. Impatient. A foot appeared for an instant at the top of my swell—a perfect foot pressed against my skin, complete with the curve of five toes, like coffee beans under my skin. And then it was gone and he was still. After a while, I fell asleep. But I awoke to screaming, and it took a long time to realize the screams were mine. I didn't lie down again, I just sat with my arms wrapped around my belly, watching the sky change over the mountains.
Finally he was back.
He'd brought food—a loaf of bread and a can of peaches. "I'm sorry—it's all I could get at the commissary." I ate and Karl told me what he had learned. I listened calmly, as if he were talking about someone else.
"They came this afternoon. Had I known you were Jewish? Did I know you'd run away? I said no, acted shocked and betrayed. They watched me all day."
"Did they know I had called you?"
"I took care of it. I told the secretary that if my sister called again, to say I was too busy to come to the phone."
I put the can of peaches down. "What am I going to do now?"
"You're going home to Holland. I'm taking you to the border."
I threw my arms around him. He held me tight while shudders of relief racked my body. I pulled back to look at him. "What about you?"
"I'll say I went looking for you. I'll play the betrayed lover. Beside myself with anger. I've thought it out."
"But—"
"No. You worry about yourself. Not about me." He passed me a thermos of tea. I drank a mouthful then handed it back. "If I drink it, we'll be stopping every twenty minutes. The baby's so big now.... "
"Will you be all right? You'll have to walk for a while."
I nodded. I had to be all right. "Are they looking for me?"
"No. They figure they'll get you when you try to cross the border. Even so, I don't want to leave until it's dark."
"How will I get across?"
Karl hesitated for just a second. "I'll explain when it's time."
"How close do you think you can get me?"
"Close. Don't worry about that part right now." He glanced at the sky. The clouds in the west were beginning to turn gold. "It'll be dark in half an hour. Cyrla ... come and lie down with me. Tonight is the last time—"
"Don't." I pressed my fingertips to his lips. "Don't."
And we lay down and held each other one last time on our bed of straw. We kissed and caressed each other slowly, imprin
ting the memory of our bodies on our mouths and hands. As if we had all the time in the world. As if we would never see each other again.
Then we lay quietly, stealing the last moments, watching the heedless sky turn red and then deep violet. Karl raised himself beside me. He touched my cheek, then trailed his fingertips down my jaw, my neck, across my collarbone to my shoulder and then slowly down the length of my arm and over my hand. He pressed his palm to mine. "It's time," he said. And he broke our touch.
He got up and helped me to my feet. "Wait." He reached into his pocket and pulled out something small and round wrapped in tissue. "I was going to give it to you when the baby was born."
I opened it. Inside was a wooden sunflower head—the spiraling rows of tiny seeds and the curling petals carved in detail.
"Turn it over."
On the other side was another sunflower face.
We drove into the dark. Karl had a map marked with the checkpoints, and we kept to the small roads where the villages were as black as the forests. It seemed we were hurtling through a tunnel; in the green glow of the dashboard lights, the stubble of Karl's beard glinted like gold dust. When a half-moon rose, it lit everything outside with a thin silvery glow. The Rhine came into view—a shining thread leading to my home. All we had to do was follow it, and then...
But Karl wouldn't talk about that final piece—the way I would cross—except to tell me where. "We'll cut over at Bruggen. The forest is thick there. You'll end up in a small town south of Nijmegen—Beesel. Do you know it?"
"No."
"It's mostly farms. You'll probably have to stay there a few days before you can get to Leona's. You'll need a story for why you're out on foot, without papers, without luggage or money. I could give you some Reichsmarks, but that would be suspicious."
"I could say my house was bombed. That's what I was planning to say when I thought I was going to run in April."
"A bombing raid. That's good. That will explain the cuts. They won't find out if it's true or not for a day or two."
"Where should I say it happened?"
"Maybe Nijmegen. You could say you took a train from there. They'll ask about your family, though—they'll expect you to try to reach a relative. You'll have to say you have no one."
"I have no one," I repeated.
"And your husband—"
"I have a husband?"
"You did. He was a soldier. He was killed months ago."
"You're killing off my husband? Just like that?"
Karl shrugged. "He fought bravely."
"He fought bravely."
"But you never loved him."
"But I never loved him. Wait ... what?"
"You couldn't love him because you were always in love with a boatbuilder from Germany. A very handsome man."
"I was, was I?"
"Yes. Stop laughing, it was very serious. Very romantic. You met him in a bakery. It was love at first sight. You felt as if there was a fine light around him, setting him apart for you."
"Love at first sight?"
"Yes. And lust. It was all you could do not to tear your clothes off and throw yourself at him."
"It's strange," I mused. "I don't remember that part."
Karl nodded sagely. "It probably embarrasses you too much."
"That's probably it."
It was good to laugh. Everything real was so grim. I looked across at Karl. His face was so beautiful to me, so precious. "I love you," I told him.
"I love you," he said.
For the next few hours, we talked of nothing painful or dangerous. We exchanged stories of our childhoods—only the happy memories, as if wrapping ourselves in each other's histories would keep us safe. I asked Karl to tell me more about the trips he and Erika had taken to Italy, and I told him about a vacation my father and mother had taken me on the year before she'd gotten ill.
The hours flew by with the landscape. Not quickly enough. Too quickly.
Around three-thirty, Karl stopped the car by a field; the flat landscape under the moonlight called to me. Familiar. Beyond the field stood a wood of evergreens.
"Karl, look."
Icicles dripped from the branches. Of course it wasn't ice on such a warm night. It looked as if the whole forest had been decorated for Christmas, with millions of silver streamers shimmering in the moonlight. I got out of the car to stare in wonder.
"Tinsel?" I asked, incredulous, as Karl came up beside me. "Eis-Lametta?"
"No, it's tinfoil. They drop it from planes to interfere with radio signals."
"Bombing raids?"
"Yes."
"We're close to the border?"
Karl pointed into the forest. My chest tightened. I wasn't prepared. I would never be prepared. "Is it time? Do you want me to go?"
"No. I want you to get into the car."
I reached for the door, relieved.
"No. Get in the back." Karl's voice had changed. I turned to question him. His eyes had changed also. "Get in the backseat and lie down."
"But—"
"Just do it. Trust me."
I lay down on the seat. Karl opened the trunk, pulled out a blanket and threw it over me. Then he got into the car and started the engine and pulled back onto the road.
I sat up and pulled the blanket around me. Our blanket. It smelled of hay and safety, but I didn't feel safe now. "Trust me," he'd said. I did, but in the dashboard lights I had seen the muscles of his neck and jaw harden. He was driving fast now. We passed a sign for Bruggen. And then the sign for the border checkpoint.
"Karl, stop. Those lights—that's the border."
"Get down!"
He didn't stop. The gears strained as we accelerated. I tried to raise myself up again, but Karl sensed it and threw his arm back over me, hard.
"Stay down."
And still he didn't stop. He picked up speed. Harsh light flashed over us, and I heard the splintering of wood and the scrape of metal, then glass smashing as we crashed through the barrier. Still he didn't stop; I pressed myself into the seat now, frozen, as we hurtled into the darkened countryside. Into Holland.
After a few moments I felt the car brake. I sat up. Before I could ask anything, Karl pulled the car to the side of the road and turned around to face me.
"You must run now. Now. You have to trust me." He reached to the floor and pulled out a liquor bottle. He opened it and poured some down his throat then spilled the rest over his uniform and the floor, his eyes to the rearview mirror. "Go! Go!" His voice was harsh. But in the mirror, I could see his face was streaming with tears.
Behind us, faintly, the wail of a siren. A second one joined it, as if in sympathy.
Karl got out and pulled open my door, dragged me to my feet on the road. "Go!" He held me tight, then pushed me away. "Follow this road until you come to a farmhouse that feels safe. Stay behind the trees. Go. Don't turn around. Go now!"
I stumbled away, splitting in two: my legs carrying my child toward safety, my heart bleeding in the road. I made it to the shoulder, then slipped down the bank to a culvert overhung with pines, scrambling to catch my footing and skidding the rest of the way. I felt a rip as if my womb were wrenching away from my spine, and I curled in a heap under the boughs. I wrapped my arms around my baby, trying to hold on to the world.
A light grew along the road from the distance. Sirens screamed closer. Run to me, I begged Karl silently, but he only turned his face to the trees where I was hidden, raised his arms, and locked his fingers together. The pieces fit.
And then they were on him. I lay in the muddy ditch and watched as two cars and a jeep skidded to circle him. Soldiers ran from each, shouting, guns and lights drawn. Karl stood calmly at the center of the chaos. He held his arms out straight, giving his wrists up to them. For the briefest second as they bound his hands behind him, in the arcing beam of a flashlight, I thought I saw the faint curve of a smile on his lips. Then they dragged him away, past the headlights, and I couldn't see his face anymore, only his silho
uette. With a fine light edging him.
Setting him apart for me.
SIXTY-TWO
SEPTEMBER 1947
I am standing at the doorstep, my knuckles raised, my arm suddenly weak, after circling the block three times trying to prepare myself. So much is at stake. I knock.
It's Erika. I know this at once. Her face is older than I would have thought and more broken, but in it I see his. For a split second, the shadow of fear races across her eyes—it's the same fear I feel every time there's an unexpected knock at my door. Then it passes—No, it's over. She stares at me. Behind her, a little girl runs past and then, seeing the open door and the strangers on the step, comes to hide behind her mother's knees.
"Cyrla?" the woman asks. We have never met. But she knows.
Our hands fly to our mouths like twin birds, our eyes fill with tears, and we both stand there, overwhelmed. It's the girls who break the frozen tableau. Lina twists her head around her mother's hip and smiles shyly, flirting with Anneke—the very image of the baby in the photograph I saw five years ago. Anneke holds her arm out straight, offering the stuffed rabbit she always carries. I have never seen her offer it before.
Erika and I gasp at the same time, and she steps out to embrace me. We can't form words and for a moment we don't need to. But only for a moment.
"Is he here?"
She pulls back and shakes her head. "No." Before the word is out of her mouth, I am trying to divine its meaning.
"Come in, Cyrla," she says. "Come in." She smiles and my heart beats again.
We embrace once more in the hallway and then we say all the usual things ... the words that try to express what words can't express. She leads me to a small parlor and tells me to sit down while she makes tea. As I look around the room, I regret my decision to dress up. My feathered hat, Anneke's big lemon-colored bow, make the flat look shabbier. Things have been harder for them here. I stand again and cross to a wall of framed photographs. There he is as a baby, there he is as a boy with a new bicycle, as a young man beside the ribs of a boat. In each—even the baby picture—his twin sister is beside him, looking up at him adoringly. There are none of him in uniform.
