Of Another Time and Place

by Brad Schaeffer

  While I suffered from anxiety upstairs in my home, Amelia made it a point to appear “normal,” so she strolled the town. Her aim was twofold: to get provisions for the trip ahead and to scout out if any SS were showing themselves. She wore a floral dress and even washed her hair. Her brief half hour of leisure included a trip to the baker to pick up the first batch of bread he’d baked in a week and then a visit to Koppel’s store. Stefan was sweeping as she entered. He watched her enter the little store and exchange pleasantries with the coughing Herr Koppel, who was suffering again from a summer cold. She purchased a wedge of cheese, soap, a head of cabbage, a bottle of cooking wine, and a small bouquet of wildflowers for the house.

  Stefan followed her movements about the store. He moved closer. After she paid and Herr Koppel wrapped everything except the flowers into a parcel, Frau Koppel called to her.

  “Amelia, dear.”

  Amelia turned with a start. “Oh!”

  Frau Koppel, a heavy woman with a face like a radish and her hair pulled back in a tight bun, laughed. “My, aren’t you the nervous little duck.”

  Amelia smiled. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s come over me lately.”

  “It’s all the damnable air raid warnings.” The woman grinned. “You’ve nothing to fear here. I just wanted to ask your opinion on some fabric we’re going to use to make draperies. I have the samples in the back of the store.”

  Amelia looked around for a clock but saw none. In the interest of normalcy she put down her parcel. “I’d be happy to give you my thoughts.”

  They disappeared into the back. While Amelia stood over a table in the middle of the small storeroom looking over swatches of lavender- and plum-colored flowered drapes, Stefan swept his broom past Amelia’s goods and bouquet.

  When she returned to the front of the store with Frau Koppel’s gratitude, Stefan had resumed his sweeping. Herr Koppel, busy stocking shelves, noticed nothing out of the ordinary. And a very distracted Amelia went on her way with her parcel in hand.

  My parents and I arrived at Amelia’s house ten minutes later. With no SS in sight, I began to wonder if Mueller had disobeyed his orders to report me, but I dismissed that as impossible. Amelia was actually not in her house, but walked through her front door carrying a parcel just after we slipped in the back.

  “What the hell is that?” I demanded. I couldn’t believe that at such a time she had actually gone shopping.

  “Mother will need extra food for the trip,” she said. “And I figured I’d look less suspicious than if I stayed hiding in my house peeking from behind the curtains on such a beautiful evening.”

  “How long were you gone?” I asked.

  “A half hour maybe,” she responded, annoyed at my doubting her judgment.

  “That was stupid,” I said. “Are you sure you weren’t followed?”

  She dumped out the contents of her package on the table and glared at me. “No, I’m not sure. Are you?”

  She had a point. “What about our friends?” I asked. “Are they ready?”

  “They’ve been ready for years,” she said with passion.

  I looked around. “Where are they?”

  “I don’t want to bring them down until we’re absolutely ready to go.”

  I declared now was a good time. “We’ll use the darkness to our advantage.”

  “Let me get Mother first,” she said. “I told her to get dressed. We’ll be out in one minute.” She disappeared into the bedroom.

  When one minute stretched into ten, I knew something was amiss. I quietly poked my head through the bedroom door and beheld the saddest of scenes.

  Amelia was perched on the edge of Hanna’s bed shaking her head. The dim light of a single lamp softened the room to a blend of velvety shadows. The shades were drawn. Amelia sat crying, pressing her mother’s clammy hand to her bosom. “Mother, I can’t leave you here,” she was saying with panic in her voice.

  Hanna smiled and ran her weak fingers through her daughter’s golden hair. “There’s no way I can possibly make it, child. You know that.”

  “Then I’m not going,” she resolved.

  Hanna sat up with a groan. She coughed furiously, to the point where she almost passed out from lack of air. Then she took hold of herself again and squeezed her daughter’s arm firmly. “You have to leave. It’s the only way to get the family out of here and still save yourself.”

  “But Mother, what about you?” she pleaded. “You can’t expect me to just leave you.”

  “Amelia, you must ask yourself this question. If you were in my place, if it was your daughter whose life was on the line, what would you have her do?”

  I quietly nodded to Hanna and then studied Amelia in the yellow light. She knew the answer. And with that she began to weep openly. “Oh damn you and your logic, Mother! You are so impossible sometimes.”

  Hanna laughed. “You should look in a mirror.” Then she cocked her head and turned towards the window. “Now go. Go! I can hear them coming.”

  Amelia was unsure what she meant, but I immediately bolted back into the family room. “Come on, let’s go. We need to make a break for it while we can.”

  I ushered my family to the rear of the house out the back door into the garden. It was now very dark under the new moon, and they disappeared into the shadows by the back fence. I strained to listen for any sounds of danger. I sensed that others were hiding in the blackness, watching us, but only the deceptively soothing cree-cree of crickets greeted my ears. I wheeled back into the house and bounded across the living room to Hanna’s room. I burst in with more force than I intended and yanked Amelia off the bed.

  “Harmon, you’re hurting me!” she cried.

  I let her go and paused. Amelia, panting with shock, brushed a lock of yellow hair from her forehead. I glanced down at her mother, who was watching me not with concern but approval. “I’m sorry, Amelia. It’s time.” I looked over to the old woman and nodded. “Your mother understands.”

  “You would have made a good son-in-law,” she declared. “Go with him, child!”

  “Goodbye, Hanna,” I said while I leaned over to kiss her on her damp forehead. Shaking off the sorrow, I smiled to her and then pulled her weeping daughter out into the living room. “Oh Mother!” she was crying.

  Now it was back to business.

  “I’ll get Leo,” I said.

  I turned to race up the stairs when suddenly I heard a faint rapping on the door. I froze in mid-step, and an electric terror raced through me.

  The knocking persisted, this time with more insistence. I whipped out my Luger and quietly moved with Amelia over to the door. Again, the rapping. Now it was accompanied by a boy’s voice. “Hello? Fräulein Amelia?” We both breathed a sigh of relief as we recognized the cracking voice of Stefan.

  The last thing we wanted to do was appear suspicious. The lights were on, and with Hanna there, it was obvious that someone was home. I holstered my pistol and stepped over to the heavy wooden door. Cracking it slightly, I peered out into the darkness. It was the faint shape of the young man carrying a bouquet of wildflowers. I opened the door more fully to allow for light to pour out and highlight his young face. Amelia came up behind me to peer at him over my shoulder. Stefan regarded us both and smiled.

  “What is it?” I asked with a scowl, as if he’d interrupted a good game of Skat.

  He clicked his heels and said: “Herr Captain. I’m sorry to bother you at this hour…but Fräulein Amelia, you left this at Herr Koppel’s.” He held out the bouquet.

  Amelia smiled at her absentmindedness. “Oh my goodness, you’re right, I did. Thank you, Stefan. You’re very kind to me.” She stepped out onto the porch and he presented her the flowers like a gentleman caller. I followed her warily out into the darkness.

  Amelia took the bouquet in her hands and patted the boy on the shoulder. S
he buried her nose in them to inhale the fragrant aroma. The woman was always a sucker for wildflowers.

  I was about to question the boy further when I felt the cold metallic circle of a gun barrel press up against my temple. For a brief moment, time stood still. And then I saw the familiar figures of SS men appear from each side of my peripheral vision. There were two of them. Each had a machine pistol lowered at my chest. The flowers fell to Amelia’s feet and her nails dug into my arm. Meanwhile, that little spy Stefan quickly retreated down the step. With my heart racing, I turned slightly to my left to see who held the pistol to my head. But it was just a formality, as I knew it could be only one man.

  “Good evening, Captain Becker,” said Keitel. “I think we should have a little chat.”

  50

  Keitel roughly shoved both me and Amelia back across the threshold and into the house. His soldiers followed us in and quickly took flanking positions. Instinctively Amelia and I, standing side by side, flung our hands into the air. Keitel kept his pistol trained squarely on my temple while he reached for my holster and removed my Luger, tossing it onto the floor to the feet of one of his Sturmmann. The stormtrooper picked it up and laid it on the mantel above the fireplace.

  Keitel then stepped back and studied us like a man who had unexpectedly come upon a fortune in gold bullion and his mind was racing on how best to hide it. His black eyes were fixed on Amelia, who was shivering with fear, and he gave her a look of mock pity.

  “What do you want with us, Johann?” I said weakly. But I knew I was in no position to demand anything with a pistol and two submachine guns aimed at me from three sides.

  Keitel ignored me. Instead he slithered over to Amelia and yanked her into his arms with a force that looked like he snapped her back. She tried to scream but found her mouth suddenly covered with his, his tongue forcing its way practically down her throat. She made guttural protests and tried to fight him off, but he held her immobile to him. His sticky lips were coated in a film of vodka and acrid cigarette smoke. Then her nails found his exposed neck, hooked into the skin and raked down, ripping his flesh and creating three parallel streaks of blood like plow lines down to his throat.

  He shrieked in pain and pushed her off of him. “You fucking bitch!” he screamed, and whipped her hard to the floor. Her eyes rolled back as she hit her forehead on the mantel and fought to stay conscious. He was panting hard, standing over her as she struggled to grab a chair and pull herself to her wobbly feet. I noticed blood trickling down the side of her forehead, and my anger at Keitel rose to a boil.

  “If you touch her again, Johann, I swear I’ll kill you!”

  His men leaned forward with their weapons in a gesture that said, No you won’t.

  He just glanced at me before returning his attention to Amelia, who’d somehow managed to stand back up. “We’ll continue this later, Fräulein. In private,” he promised. “But for now, let’s just see who’s upstairs.”

  Keitel turned and barked an order to one of his men to go up and search the attic. “Jawohl!” he said, and quickly ascended the stairs. His heavy boots pounded on the steps as if someone was hammering above us.

  Amelia and I looked at each other. It had finally happened. Just as I’d known it would. We were both dead now. The rest was just a question of how and when. I could see that she was starting to shake violently with fear. I tried to move towards her but Keitel pointed his Luger at my face. “Ah-ah,” he said in a patronizing voice.

  “Are you okay, Amelia?” I asked.

  She nodded unconvincingly as blood trickled down her brow.

  The Sturmmann descended the steps just as noisily as on the way up. I couldn’t bear to see the faces of the Krupinskis, from little Elsa and her doll to a hunched-over old Leopold, being shoved down the stairs by an SS man. But I still had to look. I followed the SS Sturmmann and saw that behind him trailed…no one. Amelia looked over to me, unable to hide her shock. I tried to remain poker-faced. Keitel, on the other hand, looked as if he’d been bluffed into folding a golden hand, leaving a fortune on the table.

  “What the devil?” he snapped at the Sturmmann.

  The man shook his head. “There’s nobody there, sir. But it’s obvious people have been living there for quite some time. Also, I found this.”

  The man handed Keitel a piece of yellow cloth. He took it in his free hand and quickly revealed to all of us that it was a Jewish star. Left behind as a symbol of defiance. I smiled inside. It had to be Jakob’s handiwork. But where were the Krupinskis?

  Keitel’s face went white. So he finally had his answer to the unsolved riddle of the Jewish Musikmeister’s disappearance. The other Jews in the town had long been accounted for. But he always thought this family had escaped him. Fled the country. How could he have been so obtuse! Love and unquenched desire had blinded him. That Jew-loving whore had made him the fool. For years! And now he wanted to know one thing. Where had the Jews gone?

  He placed a gun to Amelia’s bleeding forehead to find out. “Alright, you traitorous fucking whore, what’ve you done with them?”

  Amelia recoiled in terror from the gun, but I could tell that mixed in with her fear was genuine confusion. She honestly didn’t know. And she told Keitel just that.

  Keitel ran his fingertips down along the scrapes of his neck as if to draw rage from them. He looked over to one of his other men. “Sturmmann.”

  “Jawohl!” he shouted, still training his eyes and his weapon on her.

  “Go to the bedroom. Bring that old hag to me.”

  Hanna! We’d forgotten about her in the excitement. But Keitel had not. “No, Johann!” screamed Amelia as the SS man disappeared into the bedroom. “Please. She has nothing to do with any of this.”

  Johann stood impassive, pistol pointed at Amelia’s forehead. “I’m sure you’re right.”

  We heard Hanna protesting loudly in a shrill voice and the SS man screaming obscenities. A few seconds later the soldier reappeared, dragging the sickly old woman violently by her white hair. Her hands were clutching his forearms so her hair wouldn’t be torn out at the roots. Something inside me grew viscerally angry and I stepped forward to help, but was shoved back by the other guard.

  Amelia’s mother was screaming. “Get your bloody paws off me, you devil! You’re hurting me!”

  The stormtrooper dragged her over to the hearth and let her go, shaking his arm out of her weak grip. She fell to the floor like a sack of potatoes. Amelia was screaming at the soldier to leave her mother alone. The SS man ignored Amelia and reached down to pull Hanna up to a kneeling position in front of the fireplace and then released her.

  Hanna, breathing hard as she fell forward onto all fours, looked up at Keitel through a loose strand of white hair. “Whatever you’re going to do, Johann Keitel, do it now.”

  Amelia glanced down at her mother with a look of both pity and guilt. “I’m sorry, Mother.”

  Hanna smiled up at her. “I’m not.” Then she closed her eyes when she felt Keitel’s gun barrel against the top of her head.

  “Now, Fräulein Amelia, I’m going to ask you one last time. Where are your Jews?”

  Amelia stammered. “I swear I don’t know, Johann. I’m telling you the truth.” His trigger finger tensed, and Hanna went stiff waiting for the bullet.

  “He’s going to do it,” I warned Amelia.

  Then Hanna looked up at the man lording over her with a gun to her head and said in a meek voice: “I sent them away.”

  Amelia’s eyes widened. “You? How, Mother?”

  “Yes. How, Mother?” repeated Keitel, loosening his finger on the trigger.

  Resigned to her fate, the old woman looked over to her stunned daughter. “When you told me to get ready to try and leave town, I knew the game was done. It meant that you must have had these vile beasts breathing down your neck or you’d have never considered something so despe
rate as to run. With you out of the house, I had to tell Leopold so he wouldn’t be trapped up there should these cowards break down the door. He felt it best to get out of the house and into the dark, where he had avenues of escape.”

  Keitel spat: “I guess you can climb stairs after all, you bag of bones?”

  She gave him a look of outright contempt. “You’d be surprised how much strength an old woman can muster when friends’ lives are in danger.” And then she actually looked back to Amelia and winked. The woman had a gun pointed at her face and she winked! For my own self, I was almost paralyzed with fear. It was one thing to be in the adrenaline rush of air combat. It was quite another to have a cold-blooded murderer aiming a loaded sidearm at your head. Hanna Engel was a remarkable woman.

  Her daughter swallowed hard and nodded her goodbye as a tear ran down her cheek.

  Way off in the distance, we could hear the low hum of approaching aircraft. But we were all too preoccupied with what was happening before us to pay them any mind.

  Keitel, now frustrated to the boiling point, removed his visor cap and wiped his brow with his forearm, like a man who realizes he’s been conned when it’s too late. He casually replaced his hat and aimed the gun at Hanna’s head again. This time, though, it was as I feared. His knuckles went white as he squeezed the trigger and an ear-splitting gunshot popped, made all the more deafening by the echo of the confined space of her living room.

  Hanna’s body flopped over violently facedown, though still on her knees, like someone peering down through a knothole in the hardwood floor. Amelia screamed, “Mama! Mama!” and I stared in shock as the dark crimson fluid pumped from her head wound in spurts, creating a spreading puddle lapping at our feet. The oily smell of gunsmoke filled the room. Because my ears were ringing I couldn’t hear the droning of the aircraft growing louder as if they were on a course to directly overfly the town.

  Without pause, Keitel turned his gun back on Amelia. He looked at me with a satisfied grin. “Too bad it’s come to this, Becker. You were a good soldier once, but now you and your Knight’s Cross will be hanged as a traitor. But…if you come peacefully, nothing will happen to your Jew-loving bitch.” The two guards stepped over Hanna’s prostrate corpse and made a move to take me by each arm.