His Majesty's Hope (16 page)

It was late in the evening, but Ernst Klein hadn’t yet finished his appointed rounds. He knocked on the door of Esther Mandelbaum. There was silence, and then he heard slowly shuffling feet. After an interminable pause, several dead bolts were turned with loud clicks.

“Who is it?” came a quavering voice.

“It is I, Frau Mandelbaum—Ernst Klein.”

He heard the scrape of a chair being removed. Then the door opened. “Herr Klein.” The woman who stood before him wore her still-thick hair in a silver chignon. “How lovely to see you. Please do come in. Would you like a cup of what passes for coffee these days?”

Ernst hated himself for what he was going to do.

“I’m afraid no, Frau Mandelbaum,” he replied. “I have—I have a letter for you.” He took it out of his rucksack and handed it to her hastily, as though it burned his fingers.

It was a standard-sized business envelope, bone-white, with her name and correct address spelled out in neat black type. The return address was the Reich Association of the Jews.

“So,” Frau Mandelbaum said impassively, “it has finally arrived.” She opened the envelope and took out the letter and read:
“The arrested are to gather at the synagogue on Wednesday, 9 A.M. Wear working clothes and bring hand luggage that is easily carried. Also, bring food for two to three days. In addition, take with you your valuables and cash. No matches or candles.”

“It’s not property confiscation, just a work assignment,” Ernst said.

“A work assignment? At my age?” Frau Mandelbaum gave a sniff. “It’s a death sentence. And you and I both know it.”

He was silent a moment, then asked, “What will you do?”

She shrugged. “What can I do?”

They both stood there, at an impasse. Then Ernst dug a clipboard and pen from his bag. “I’m sorry to have to ask you this, Frau Mandelbaum, but you are required to sign here.”

“Of course,” she said, accepting the pen and signing her name in neat script. “If God lived on earth, people would break His windows.”

Ernst gave a bitter laugh.

“At least
you’re
still safe,” she told him. “With that shiksa wife of yours.”

Ernst pulled out another letter from his breast pocket. When she saw his name typed in the same black letters and the return address, Frau Mandelbaum’s eyes widened.

Ernst nodded. “Apparently not.”

“Will I see you at the synagogue?”

“Perhaps, Frau Mandelbaum. Perhaps.”

David and Freddie lay together in David’s bed, their heads on thick, goose-down-stuffed pillows, staring up at the ceiling, passing one cigarette back and forth, a crystal ashtray between them.

“You know that what you did was wrong,” Freddie began.

“On the contrary—you seemed to like it quite a bit!”

“No, no, I mean asking Rosamund Moser to dinner—
that
was wrong.”

“I know,” David sighed. “But she didn’t have to be so waspish about it.”

“Well, it’s understandable, no? But, in all seriousness, marrying some poor innocent young girl—that’s wrong. Rosamund—any girl—deserves a man who will love her.
Really
love her.”

“I know, I know.” David covered his eyes with his hands. “But I was desperate. What else can I do?”

Freddie turned over to face him. “Be honest. Everything aboveboard. Marry someone who knows.”

“Who
knows
?” David laughed, a short, bitter laugh. “Then no one would marry me.”

“What about Daphne Brooks?”

“Daphne? She’s a lesbian!”

Freddie smiled. “Exactly. And I can’t help but think her parents must want
her
married.”

“Oh,” said David. Freddie watched him, waiting for all the
cogs to click into place. Finally, they did.
“Oh!
Right! And then we could each go about our business—”

“With no one interfering.”

“Well, she’s not Jewish—”

“Surely she can convert.”

“And I’m not sure she’d want to have children.”

Freddie took David’s hand. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’ll set up a dinner party, with her and her girlfriend. We’ll all have a little wine …”

“Wizard!” David exclaimed. “You’re brilliant, my love.”

Freddie smiled. “Well, I can think of a number of ways for you to reward me …”

It was Frieda’s day off.

Since she was married to a Jew, there wasn’t much she could do. She wasn’t permitted to stroll in the Tiergarten. She wasn’t allowed to go to the movies. And she wasn’t even allowed to queue up for food until four o’clock—by which time all the shops would be sold out of rations.

So, Frieda tied an apron around her waist and began to clean the apartment. She swept, washed the floors, scrubbed the windows. And she dusted. Which was why she moved the papers on Ernst’s desk.

It was then that she saw the envelope.

“Mein Gott,”
she murmured, her fingers trembling as she picked it up. The typed
Doktor Ernst Klein
and their address burned her eyes.

Still, Ernst delivered mail for the Jewish Reich Organization. This letter could be anything. It could be nothing. Frieda hesitated, then, with hands shaking, opened the envelope and took out
the sheet of paper inside. What she saw made her feel faint, so faint she had to sink down on the threadbare sofa.

Only two days away.

Was Ernst even going to tell her? Or tell her only at the last minute?

A work camp. She held out no hope for decent treatment at any Nazi-run so-called work camp.

Not knowing what else to do, she waited, cold and stone-still on the sofa, as the light changed, the sun went down. And then she sat in the darkness.

When Ernst returned to the apartment, he didn’t realize anyone was home. He flipped on the light switch for the bulb overhead, then gasped.

“What are you doing, sitting here in the dark?” he demanded. Then he saw the letter in her hand. He realized what she had done, what she had seen, what she now knew.

He sat beside her and took her hand.

“I want you”—his voice broke, but he pressed on—“to help me die.”

“What?” It was not what Frieda was expecting him to say. Help him to escape, to go into hiding, to rob a bank and bribe someone—yes. But help her husband commit suicide? No. “I’m a nurse—I’m supposed to help heal people. I can’t help you—or anyone—die. That’s insane.
Insane
.”

Ernst rose and ran both hands through his hair until it stood up on end. “This whole situation is insane, Frieda! Either way I’m going to die. I’d rather do it myself than let those Nazi bastards get the satisfaction. Do you think what I will face is going to be any better?”

“They’re using that argument to euthanize people. Children from the hospital who are mentally, developmentally ill …” Frieda was trembling. “Elise still doesn’t know, but it’s becoming less of a secret every day.”

“It’s not the same argument! I’m not a child!” Ernst began to pace in the small room. “I’m a grown man, in control of all my faculties. This is
my
decision. I want to die now, at home, with you. I want to die with my dignity intact. I saw the film
Ich klage an
. We both did.”

“Suicide is a sin. A mortal sin.”

“I’m a Jew,” he said. “I don’t believe in sin, at least not the way you do. And I don’t believe in hell—unless it’s where we’re living now.”

Frieda put her head in her hands and sobbed. “I can’t do it!”

“Then I will.”

“You?” Frieda looked up. “You don’t have the medicine.”

“It doesn’t take medicine to jump from a roof. It doesn’t take medicine to hang yourself with a cord and kick out the chair. It doesn’t take medicine to—”

“Stop!” Frieda screamed. Then, in a quieter voice, “Stop.” She covered her eyes with her hands. “I need to think about it. I need time to think.”

“Think as much as you want,” Ernst told his wife. “We—or rather, I—have two days.”

It was five
P.M
. and the corridors of Charité were crowded with staff changing shifts.

Elise needed to leave soon to get back home and dress for her mother’s party. She made her rounds swiftly and efficiently, taking temperatures, blood pressures, listening to pulses. All was well.

Until she reached Herr Mystery. The patient was thrashing in
his sleep, moaning. Elise put a hand to his forehead. Fever—he was burning up. No wonder he was having nightmares.
“Verdammt,”
she muttered. She’d hoped that he was over the worst of the postsurgery infections. Apparently not. She turned him on his back, then began to insert a hollow IV needle into the vein of his inner elbow.

“No!” he moaned suddenly, in English. “No! Don’t! Stop it!” He struggled, then suddenly went limp, back to deep sleep, lashes dark against his pale skin.

Elise recoiled in shock.
English?
she thought, bewildered.
Finally he speaks—and he speaks in English?
She looked around—no one else had heard him.

She knew that if he’d been overheard, he’d be reported. Taken in for questioning. Most likely hanged.

Another death. And for what?
Then she remembered the attic. It was already fixed up to hide someone. And an adult might be easier to conceal than a child … Elise gave a crooked half smile. Plus there was the distinct satisfaction of hiding a British refugee right under her mother’s nose—on the very night of her party, no less.
Not that it’s about me, God
, she prayed.
But if I do get a little bit of enjoyment, that’s not horrible, yes? Will you forgive me?

She hung the IV on the frame of his bed. “Come, Herr Mystery,” she whispered as she wheeled the bed out of the room, looking straight ahead, trying to appear as though what she was doing was perfectly normal. Her heart raced. “Let’s find you somewhere more private to convalesce.”

“It’s an emergency,” Elise said into the receiver, her hands worrying at the thick metal cord.

“I’m a priest, not a taxi service,” Father Licht objected. “And I’m celebrating Mass tonight.”

“It’s—it’s important. I’d rather not say more over the phone.

But it’s life and death.”

“The paperwork?”

“Something else. But similar.”

Father Licht took off his wire-rimmed glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose, where there was a red indentation from their weight. “All right. When do you need me?”

Elise looked out the window, cursing the summer, which brought with it longer days and more sunlight. She would prefer to wait until dusk. But she needed to get back for her mother’s birthday party. She was supposed to accompany Clara on the piano. If she didn’t show up on time …

“Meet me at seven—at Charité’s service entrance. And, Father—please bring a change of priest’s clothing.”

Maggie and Gottlieb were getting dressed for the Fire and Ice Ball.
“Feuer und Eis?”
Maggie asked, dabbing on perfume in Gottlieb’s bedroom. “You know, there’s a Robert Frost poem about fire and ice:

Gottlieb, trying to tie his bow tie in the bathroom mirror, quoted back:

“You read American poetry?” Maggie was shocked.

Gottlieb gave up on his tie. “Surprised the brutish Hun has read something besides Goethe?”

“Because—oh, never mind. Do I look all right?” Noreen had anticipated Maggie’s needing a formal dress when she’d packed her case, but it was blue—and according to Gottlieb, for this particular party young women were supposed to dress in white, older women in black.

Luckily Noreen had also thought to give Maggie clothing rations. During the day, Maggie had gone to the KaDeWe department store in Wittenbergplatz. There she bought, with most of her coupons—and a lot of her cash—a white chiffon evening dress.

“Would you mind helping me with my tie?”

“Of course.” Maggie retied his bow tie, deliberately looking away from the swastika pins in his lapel.

“Do you have the microphone?”

“It’s in my handbag.”

“Not loose, I hope.”

Even though she was nervous, Maggie bit her lip. Gottlieb and his attitude were getting on her already stretched nerves. “I have it wrapped in two handkerchiefs.”

“Good, good.” He walked to the front door and opened it, giving her a courtly bow. “After you.”

Maggie breezed through. “Thank you,
Schatzi
.”

Elise waited for Father Licht in the shadows of Charité’s service entrance, emerging only when the priest’s battered car pulled up. She had transferred Herr Mystery from the bed to a wheelchair.

“Gott sei Dank,”
she said, looking both ways to make sure no one was around. “I’m going to need your help.”

Father Licht left the car with the engine idling, and looked at
the young man in the wheelchair, who managed to give him a crooked smile. “I can see why you didn’t want to discuss this over the telephone,” he muttered.

“Father Licht, please meet Herr Mystery. Herr Mystery—Father Johann Licht.”

“Freut mich,”
Father Licht said as he opened the back door, then helped Elise lift the man out of the chair.

Herr Mystery nodded at Father Licht, then grimaced from the pain of moving.

“He’s not a big talker,” Elise explained to the priest. Then, to Herr Mystery, “Are you all right?” She leaned in to push his curly dark hair out of his eyes and feel his forehead. He was feverish. She pulled the priest’s garb Father Licht had brought over his head, then tucked a blanket around him.

“Look,” she whispered in English in the injured man’s ear. “I know you’re British—you were talking in your sleep. If you get caught, you’ll … be in a lot of trouble. So, I’m taking you somewhere safe.”

Herr Mystery closed his eyes. Elise realized he had too much morphine in his system to be aware of much.

“Your friend’s the silent type,” Father Licht observed as he and Elise slid into the front seats.

“The less you know, the better,” she retorted.

“I understand. Where to,
gnädiges Fräulein
?”

“Grunewald.”

“Grunewald?”

“It’s where I live.” Elise rolled down the window, breathing in the warm evening air. “Where I fixed up the attic to hide the children. He’s no child, but it looks as though it’s going to come in handy now.”