All God's Children (5 page)

She giggled and pumped his hand up and down several times. This time there was no mention of showing proper allegiance to Hitler with a salute.

After Josef and Franz had climbed the narrow enclosed stairway from the kitchen to the attic to finish getting Josef settled into his new space, Beth sent Liesl off to change into her nightgown and prepare for story time.

Over the years that she had lived with her aunt and uncle, she had learned to read her aunt’s frequent mood shifts almost as well as she knew how to calm her cousin’s tantrums. As the two women washed the dishes, Beth was well aware that something beyond the conversation at dinner had caused her to become so upset—perhaps something that had occurred while she was out shopping earlier. Whatever the reason, Beth had learned that it was best to address the situation directly rather than allow it to fester overnight.

“I apologize for upsetting you earlier,” she said, taking a freshly washed serving dish from her aunt and wiping it dry. “I know that sometimes I say things that—”

Aunt Ilse wheeled around and glared at her. “You must mind your tongue, Beth. These are troubling times—dangerous times. We know nothing of this man—this Josef Buch.”

“I thought he studied with Uncle Franz.”

“As have any number of such young men, but is that enough? Is that all we need to know to take him in, to have him living here, taking meals with us, engaging us in conversations that might ultimately be reported?”

Ilse was whispering, although she and Beth were alone in the kitchen. They could hear the men walking around the bare boards of the attic above them. “Reported?” Beth asked.

Her aunt heaved a sigh laden with frustration. “Sometimes you are as distracted and dense as Liesl is. This man’s father works for the government—has quite a high position in the Gestapo right here in Munich. His mother entertains regularly, and word has it that some of the highest ranking politicians have sat at her table—perhaps even Herr Hitler himself.”

“Uncle Franz explained his reasons. I don’t understand….”

Ilse shut off the water and wiped her hands on her apron. “Of course you don’t understand. What do you know of the way things are here? The way everything has changed?”

Beth struggled to control her bent toward impatience when it came to her aunt’s hysterics. Sometimes Ilse still treated her as if she were the newly arrived teenager instead of a twenty-five-year-old woman. “I understand more than you may realize. I’ve lived in this country for eight years, after all, and in that time—”

“Ha! ‘My country was founded on the principle of religious freedom,’” Aunt Ilse mocked, practically hissing the words. “Well, I must remind you that you are not living in
your
country. You are living in
this
country, where things are very different. And as an American living in the very birthplace of the Nazi Party, you bring all of us under scrutiny. There are things that you—” She bit her lip as if to stop her tirade and turned her attention to scrubbing a pot.

“Auntie Ilse,” Beth pleaded, “tell me what has upset you so.”

The scrubbing slowed and finally stopped as Ilse let the pot sink into the suds. “This morning I was on the telephone with Gudren Heinz and heard a clicking sound on the line. She professed not to hear it, but she certainly got off the line quickly. What if the government has tapped our telephone? What if they have taken notice of the meetings for worship we host and these so-called literary soirees? What if they have decided to watch us because we are harboring an enemy—an American? What if that young man’s father sent him here to spy on the professor—on you?”

“Surely Uncle Franz—”

“Your uncle is a good and decent man who believes in the goodness and decency of all men. He is, in these times, a fool.” Ilse pressed her fist to her lips as if she would take back those harsh words. “And I can’t protect him—or Liesl,” she whispered, her voice cracking as she turned away. “And you…”

Beth folded her dishtowel into precise thirds and then folded it in half and in half again while she considered her next words. “Shall I move out?”

“Of course not,” Ilse snapped. “You are the daughter of my husband’s beloved sister. Liesl adores you. You are family.”

“Then what do you want of me?”

“I want you to keep your distance from this doctor—this Josef Buch. I want you to keep your thoughts and comments to yourself whenever he tries to engage you in conversation. I want you to be as invisible as possible to this man. Can you do that?” Aunt Ilse’s previously sarcastic tone had settled into a plea.

“Yes. You have my word.”

Her aunt surprised her by cradling Beth’s face in her still-wet hands and kissing her on both cheeks.

“Danke,” she whispered as she turned away and wiped her eyes with the hem of her apron.

    CHAPTER 3    

L
ater that night after making sure that the front door was secured and the blackout shades properly in place, Franz trudged down the corridor that led to the bedrooms after stopping briefly in the kitchen for a glass of water. The truth was that he needed some time to consider how best to ease Ilse’s fears about the presence of Josef in their home.

Earlier after Josef assured him that he had everything he could possibly want to be comfortable in the attic space, Franz had insisted that the young doctor join him in the study to share a cup of hot cocoa made with the chocolate that Josef had given them. They were listening to a recording of Schubert’s “Trout Quintet” when Beth tapped lightly on the door and entered the room.

Franz had been glad to see her as he patted a place on the sofa, inviting her to sit. But she did not stay as she normally would have, and Franz accepted her excuse that she wanted to answer the letter from her parents. He had not missed the way that she had barely glanced at Josef as she paused at the door and bid them both good night.

Now after glancing up the attic stairs and seeing that Josef’s light was out, Franz headed for the bedroom he and Ilse had shared for over thirty years. He had expected to find her curled on her side, her breathing deep and even. Instead she was sitting at her dressing table, her hair—still golden in spite of streaks of gray that seemed to have appeared almost overnight—loose from the austere bun she wore it in these days.

“Ilse?” There was something about her posture that raised an alarm for him. Her shoulders were rigid under the thin fabric of her satin robe, and she was so still that she might have been a statue.
A prelude to one of her nervous attacks
, he thought and sighed heavily as he closed the bedroom door and moved to stand near her, their images reflected in the mirror.

“I cannot do this again, Franz,” she said. Her voice was devoid of emotion. “I don’t think I can survive another war…at least not this war.”

“What has happened?” Franz knew his wife so well. It was evident that more than Josef’s arrival had upset her so. When they’d first married shortly before the last war—the war that was supposed to end all wars—had begun, Ilse had been a rock, moving through difficult times with the certainty that this, too, would pass. But lately…

“When I went to the butcher’s today, Herr Schwarzhagen was not there.”

“He is ill?”

“He’s been arrested, Franz, and sent to Dachau.”

“What is the charge?”

Ilse did not turn to face him but continued to stare at his reflection. “The charge? There doesn’t need to be a charge, Franz. If anyone should know that, it is you. From the day the Fuhrer’s People’s Court began, there are no rights….”

It was true. Never could Franz have imagined there could ever be a place like Dachau in his Germany. Located only a few miles north of Munich, the concentration camp had opened just six months after Hitler took office, one of a network of such camps for imprisoning anyone deemed a threat to the Reich. In March of that year the government—citing the need to be granted extraordinary powers— had passed the Enabling Act suspending civil rights for all citizens and effectively demoting the Reichstag or governing body to the position of little more than a sounding board for Hitler’s pronouncements.

The incredible thing was that most Germans had gone along with these extraordinary acts, had even applauded them as true leadership. Franz was well aware that the butcher had been one of the most outspoken when it came to praising the new government. So if he could be detained, then…

“There must be some cause,” Franz said. He placed his hands on Ilse’s shoulders and felt her soften as she surrendered to his touch. Then she was shaking, her sobs coming in choking waves.

“I am so very tired of always being afraid,” she managed.

Franz sat beside her on the small upholstered bench and wrapped his arms around her. “I am here, Liebchen. I will make sure you are all right. There is nothing for you to fear.” But he knew it for the lie it was. Every day he went to the university half expecting to find a letter from his superiors relieving him of his duties because of “political unreliability.” That was usually the reason given these days, no further explanation required. Once given, Franz would have no recourse. And then there was the matter of Beth living with them—an American in their house only added to the danger for them.

“We should go away,” Ilse was saying.

“Where would we go?” Franz asked as he stroked her hair and kept his voice light as if they were discussing plans for a holiday rather than contemplating fleeing their homeland.

“Marta and Lucas have talked of going to Switzerland,” she said, nodding toward a framed photograph of her sister and brother-in-law and their three children that she kept on her dressing table. “We could go with them. You could find a teaching position at the university in Geneva. I could care for Liesl and their darlings while Marta finds work perhaps in a flower shop. And Beth could go home.”

“You must consider your health, Ilse. That is why Beth has stayed with us all these years. Besides, Munich is our home,” Franz reminded her. “Our friends are here. My work is here.”

“But if our closest family moves to Switzerland…” She broke down with fresh tears.

“Shhh,” Franz crooned. “You know your sister. She is a dreamer— not easily satisfied. It’s talk, Ilse, nothing more.”

“But if we all went, then we could be safe.”

“We are safe here.” But the words stuck in his throat. How safe were they really? How safe was anyone these days?

The brilliant sunny days of October settled into the more somber gray days of November, and although their boarder had been in residence for nearly three weeks, Beth barely saw him. He left early in the morning and did not return sometimes until everyone else was in bed for the night. Beth always heard him when he came back, the key in the front lock followed by silence while he removed his shoes and coat and hat and left them in the foyer. Then she would hear the tread of his steps moving through the front hallway to the kitchen and from there up to his room above the one where she and Liesl slept.

She lay awake making sense of the sounds she heard as he prepared for bed, the squeak of the single bed’s metal springs, the click of the lamp. Only once she felt certain that he was settled for the night could she finally get to sleep. For some reason she felt as if he were a buffer against the constant foreboding that a knock would come in the night and she would be arrested as an enemy of the State—they would all be arrested for harboring her. To her surprise, with Josef in the house, most nights she could sleep without the underlying apprehension that dominated so much of her waking hours.