Daisies Are Forever (17 page)

“Will it be? Will it ever be?”

“Yes. By the spring, perhaps.”

“I want to go home.”

“You are on your way to Berlin.”

“Not Berlin. America. Vater is the one who insisted we return to Germany. Mutti and I didn’t want to leave. But what Vater said, you did.”

“Is that why you joined the Hitler Youth?”

“In part.”

They rode in silence for a while. He had yet to figure out who she was—an American or a German. Where did her loyalties lie? Did she have any?

She was the first to break the silence. “Was it cold in the camp?”

“There were warm coats and heated barracks. But I hated it.” He tried to keep the conversation neutral, as if he was talking like a guard at the camp.

“At least you were safe, away from the front lines.”

“I should have been fighting. I’m a coward for hiding out in a POW camp.”

“You didn’t have a choice.”

“But I did. If not for me, we might have made it to our destination. To home. We fought in one battle. One, all war. That’s it. And when the fire got too hot, we ran. The whole lot of us. What would you call it but cowardly?”

“I would call that war. I would call that God’s protection over you.”

“I didn’t fight for my country’s freedom. God could have protected me on the battlefield.”

“He could have. He chose not to. Was it cowardly of me to go to East Prussia and stay there, away from the bombings in Berlin? There were things I could have done but didn’t do.”

“You’re a woman. Another matter entirely.”

“No. My friend stayed in the city. She works the air-raid searchlights. I chose to leave.”

“The smart thing to do.” She didn’t understand. Not at all. It was a man’s job to protect his family, his home, his country.

In this, he failed.

Mitch was running, running, running. No matter how fast he moved his legs, no matter how fast he pumped his arms, he never made any progress. The Germans were always right behind him and Xavier and the four others with them.

They shot in front of them, they shot behind them, they shot all around them. The trees always looked the same. The same farmhouse. The same hedgerows. Try as he might, he never made progress.

He couldn’t catch his breath. He ripped off his pack, but his lungs refused to suck in air. And still, he didn’t get any farther than when he had started.

He spun around. The men behind him cursed as they were hit. They fell like ants in front of a bulldozer.

And then he faced forward. Right in front of him were five German panzers.

With a start, he awoke.

Gisela was shaking him. “Josep. Josep.”

“I’m up.”

“You were having a nightmare. Calling out in your sleep. In English.”

Around them, Audra snored a little, her head on Kurt’s shoulder, Renate cuddled close to her. Annelies lay across the back of the seat.

“A nightmare?” Sweat beaded above his lip.

“Ja. Do you care to tell me about it?”

“Nein.”

“But it haunts you.”

“Only at night.”

“Do the nightmares happen often?”

“Too often.”

“You were screaming about the Germans coming.”

“Yes.” He didn’t want to relive it. It was bad enough that it happened over and over again in his dreams.

“Is it about when you were captured?”

He nodded. “We met up with a panzer group.”

She wrapped her arm around him under his coat, though his shirt was damp with perspiration. “Getting captured is no sin.”

“It cost many of those men their lives. Because of my decisions.”

She bowed her head. “It’s hard in these days to know what is right and what is wrong.”

For once, she didn’t fight him but nestled into his embrace. Her head came to his chin, her ear against his chest. The feel of her in his arms soothed him.

When she spoke again, her voice was low. “When I was afraid of the dark, Mutti told me to think happy thoughts. Then I would dream of the beach, the seagulls calling as they wheeled overhead, the taste of salt water on my tongue. What makes you happy?”

“The wind in my hair, the earth underneath me, the sun on my face.”

“I’ve been wondering that. Why join the army when you want to be a pilot? Why not the air force?”

“I wanted to, but Father forbade me. He thought he’d won that battle, that I’d stay in England and pick a sensible career, like a solicitor. Xavier dared me to join the army instead. Father got his way. I didn’t join the RAF.”

“Why do something like that?”

“You know how crackers young men can get. It sounded good to me at the time. He couldn’t accept that I hadn’t any desire for law. I would do anything to get away from his plans for me to go to university and join his firm. Xavier was always getting me into trouble. Father did not approve of our friendship.” His grief gripped him fresh once more, and he rubbed his watery eyes. His chum would have found a way to enjoy this adventure.

“I’ll dream that same dream, the dream about England, with you.”

He relaxed against her and they melded together, sleep claiming him as visions of a woman with amber-brown hair and eyes to match invaded his slumber.

EIGHTEEN

February 22

G
isela’s neck ached, along with her back, and her legs cramped. Hunger clawed at her stomach. The trip that should have taken them mere hours had lasted several grueling days as the train moved slowly, stopping and starting in fits, darkness wrapping its long fingers around them.

She peered at Mitch, standing in the aisle, his head bobbing on his chest. She tilted her head to the right and then to the left. If she had a stiff neck, she had no idea how sore his would be when he woke.

The first rays of the morning sun peeked above the horizon. Soon the sky was ablaze with red and orange, purple and navy. White stucco cottages with red roofs flashed by. Fields lay stark against the pine trees. The amount of snow on the ground dwindled with each passing kilometer as the weather warmed.

People in the carriage yawned, stretched, and wiped the sleep from their eyes. Gisela rubbed her neck, attempting to loosen the kinks. She would never take a duvet-covered bed for granted again. To sleep on a mattress would be a luxury.

Annelies awoke and sat up. “I’m hungry, Tante Gisela.”

“In a little while, when everyone is awake, I will get you some bread.”

“I’m awake.” Mitch raised and lowered his shoulders several times. Her stomach fluttered at the sight of the crinkles around his eyes. “What would you like for breakfast, princess?”

“I don’t know.”

“Me neither.” Renate had awakened.

“Let me see.” Mitch tapped his pointer finger on his chin. “What about stollen?”

“Ja, ja. That would be good.” Annelies clapped her hands together and her sister followed suit.

Gisela sighed. “And where do you propose to get these pastries?”

“How about bacon and eggs?”

“Ja, I would eat that.”

“Quit teasing the girls. They will only be disappointed.”

Audra’s stomach rumbled. “You are making me hungry.” The girls giggled.

Katya fluffed her hair with her fingers. “Sister, did you hear that? Eggs and bacon and pastry. What a fine meal. With some coffee to wash it down.”

Bettina smacked her lips. “We can sit at a table on the Champs-Élysées and watch the couples stroll past.”

“Now, Sister, do tell the truth. Is Paris not the most romantic place in the entire world?”

“I beg to differ, Sister. The beaches of Majorca are even better.”

Gisela shook her head. “We’re getting close.”

Audra nodded. “Does anything look familiar?”

“Ja.” A lump rose in her throat. “We are approaching Biesenthal. See the church steeple?” A dark roof and cross topped the white stone building that towered over the rest of the red-roofed town.

Audra touched her shoulder.

Gisela could say no more. Greta Cohen, her best friend in school when her family first came to Germany in 1936, moved to Biesenthal two years later. They were the “Two Gs” and Gisela often took the train here to visit Greta. In 1941, her friend disappeared. Gisela had no idea whether or not she was still alive.

And she had done nothing to help. She had known life was getting dangerous for the Jews, yet she never thought anything would happen to Greta. Then it was too late.

The stations rolled past. Even with the cracks in the windows distorting the view, they revealed brick buildings, trees against stark skies, tired people rushing through the streets. She sat a little straighter with each one that went by. Familiar landmarks stirred a wave of homesickness she didn’t think she possessed. Had Berlin become a home to her?

Yet the destruction appalled her. In some neighborhoods, no more than one in twenty houses stood. Entire blocks had been reduced to piles of rubble. The barren trees, burned black, would never leaf. The Nazi regime was crumbling.

And what had become of their home? She hadn’t been in contact with her family since before she fled Heiligenbeil. Would she find Mutti amid this destruction?

The train slowed and she recognized the buildings around the Berlin-Stettiner Bahnhof. The brakes squealed and the platform came into view. Two years ago, she had stood in this very place while Mutti wrapped the daisy scarf around her neck, then Gisela waved good-bye to her parents. She bit back a sob and squared her shoulders.

The crowd flowed down the aisle and poured out the doors.

Bettina pressed her nose against the cold windowpane. “I didn’t think Paris would look like this.”

“It’s the war you know, Sister. Those French would burn down their entire city to spite us.”

Gisela believed it would break their hearts to know the truth about their glorious fatherland.

The group waited to disembark until the last for the children’s sake, though Gisela’s feet itched. At the same time, her heart hitched. She didn’t want to think about what she might find at her old address.

At last they walked down the aisle, her right fingers entwined with Annelies’s, her left dragging across the crushed-velvet seats. She was glad to leave this stinky, filthy carriage.

They exited the building with its soaring, arching roof and began the next leg of their journey.

Gisela gasped the moment they left the station and walked out on the
strasse
. Rubble littered the city. In some buildings, windows were blown out and the buildings’ facades damaged.

It wasn’t the city she had once known.

Without familiar landmarks, she couldn’t remember which direction to turn. It had been so long and the place had changed so much. She swallowed and tried to catch her breath.

Mitch’s hip bump startled her. “I said, which way do we go?”

Panic strangled her. “I don’t remember.”

“Not again. Lord, not again.” He tugged on his coat.

She took a deep breath, trying to recall. “Left. I think we go left.” She glanced in both directions as people went about their lives among the rubble.

“But you aren’t sure.”

Was Mitch trying to confuse her? “Turn left. I’ll know soon if that is correct or not.”

“Be sure.”

“There is nothing sure now.”

He huffed as she struck out. “Bettina, Katya, are you coming?”

“I thought Paris would be cleaner than this. Sister, we should have stayed home. These people need to learn to be neater.” Katya
tsk-tsked but drew even with Gisela. “Dearie, I do believe the Eiffel Tower is to the right, not to the left. It may have been years and years since I was here, but I remember that much.”

Gisela handed Annelies to Kurt and took the woman’s suitcase from her. “I thought you told me you have never been to Paris.”

“But I have been. In ’26, Sister and I spent a glorious summer here. I fell in love with a painter and my parents rushed here to prevent my marriage to the man. They wanted better for me. He was better for me.”

Gisela’s gaze wandered to the handsome man beside her, his dark eyes framed by his wavy hair. His beard had thickened during the trek.

“Who are we going to tell Mutti you are? My husband?”

Mitch scratched his chin. “We have to keep up the charade as long as Kurt and Audra are with us. You will have to introduce me as your husband. Perhaps you will get a moment alone when you can tell her the truth.”

She had lied easily enough throughout the trek, but never to Mutti. That is one person to whom she never told a falsehood.

“Careful.”

Mitch’s command brought her to an abrupt stop. A pile of rubble loomed in front of her. Best to keep her eyes on the road and not on the distracting man beside her. Between what had been two bricks, a little doll’s face peeked out.

In the midst of the hustle and bustle that was the city of Berlin, air-raid sirens blared. Mitch’s heart jumped as weakness surged into his arms and legs. Where were they supposed to go? He clasped Renate’s tiny hand in his and squeezed it.

“Dearies, dearies, what is happening?” Bettina’s words whistled out between her teeth.

“Why, Sister, the place is on fire.”

Gisela’s spine stiffened as she continued forward. “Nein, not on fire. It’s an air-raid warning. We need to get to the shelter. Everyone to the
luftschutzbunker
.” She pointed to a building with a white arrow painted on the side with a sign.
Zum Öffentlichen Luftschutzraum.
He assumed it showed the way to the public air-raid shelter.

Berliners of all shapes and sizes followed the arrow as if they were headed to work or church. Of course they would be prepared for this. They had been dealing with Allied bombings since the very beginning. And Gisela would have experienced many of these terrifying raids.

The shaking in his legs subsided and he followed her down the street. Her momentary lack of confidence had fled and she marched forward with a sure step.

The huge crowd filed toward the shelter in a remarkably orderly fashion. A few, perhaps as newly arrived as he was, glanced around, terror in their eyes. Most Berliners continued with their conversations, unfazed by the howling of the sirens.

Off in the distance came the unmistakable humming of many, many bombers. Mitch craned his neck toward the sky. “My countrymen.” How he wished he could be on the other side of this war. He needed to be on the other side of this war.