Under the Same Blue Sky (32 page)

”It looks like the baron’s staying up there,” Lotte said, clearly uncomfortable with David’s presence. “I’ll bring him some soup.” She had just filled another bowl when the baron appeared and slowly sat.

“She’s gone.” A spoon clattered on the table. “It happened so quickly. She couldn’t get breath.” His eyes were faintly rimmed in red. “She wanted to see America.”

“I’m sorry, sir.” I touched his sleeve and he laid his hand on mine, an extraordinary gesture.

“This is no world for the baroness,” Lotte said quietly. “It’s nothing that she knew. Even if she wasn’t sick, she couldn’t have endured it.” The baron nodded. Lotte slipped into the pantry and emerged with a dusty bottle of schnapps. “The last of the old baron’s stock.” We drank to the memory of the baroness. There was no time or spirit for long stories as we’d done at my father’s wake, but Lotte did recall being a kitchen maid when the baroness was a young bride, very beautiful and shy.

The baron looked far away. “When I was fifteen,” he said, “she and I danced together at a fancy dress ball.”

“We servants watched,” Lotte confessed. “In all Prussia, there wasn’t a finer-looking couple.” She refilled our glasses.

But that was all the time we had for memories. “We have to bury her,” the baron announced.

Lotte stiffened. “There’s no time. And the priest died last week.” Her eyes caught mine and flicked away. So how could she bring David to the priest? Clearly, she’d had no plan besides leaving him behind.

“The baroness will be buried with my family. I’m not letting the vandals have her.”

Lotte finished the last of the soup. “If you prepare the body, fräulein,” she said finally, “I’ll help the baron with her grave.”

“Well then.” For the first time the baron registered David pressed against my side, his head barely grazing the table, wide-eyed through this conversation. “Who’s that?”

“His name is David. His father was a Russian soldier. He’s the orphan child of Minna the kitchen maid and needs to go to America.”

Appraising eyes measured the small figure. “He’s a
child
.”

“Yes,” I said in English. “A child. Not a child in the abstract. A child who will die if he stays here.”

“Hazel, what difference does saving one child make? You’ve seen Prussia. Imagine all of Germany, all of Europe now. There are millions of orphan children.” Like my father, he looked away, seeing bodies stretched to the horizon.

“It will make a difference to
this
child. We can make a miracle for him.”

“What about Tom?”

“When he comes home, he’ll find a little boy.” David watched our faces avidly, surely guessing that his fate was being weighed in our mysterious words.

“Getting back to Antwerp will be hard enough for us. And far more difficult with a child. It’s not a good idea,” he finished, as if I’d proposed an unworkable plan for shipping fine crystal.

“No, it’s not. You would have brought the baroness back.”

“He doesn’t have any documents, I assume.”

“No. We’d have to create them.”

“I see. You want to be responsible for this child?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve considered the complications?”

“Yes.”

“Just now, so quickly?”

“Yes.” Like my mother in her arguments, I didn’t move.

The baron studied David’s grip on the wooden horse. “When that was mine,” he said finally in German, “I called him Bucephalus, after Alexander the Great’s war horse.”

“Bucephalus,” David repeated, cradling the horse’s bare rump.

“He had a tail of horsehair once.”

“Maybe I can make him another one.”

“Maybe you can.” He cleared his throat as he did before any formal negotiation. “David, what Fräulein Renner and I have been discussing is the option of—” He caught my eye and began again. “Would you like to come to America with us?” The child’s eyes widened. Had he heard the horrors about Americans that our children heard about Huns?

The great blue eyes fixed on me. “Is there food?”

“Yes.”

“And children?”

“Yes.”

“Are there—” He looked out the dark window.

“It’s safe. There’s no war in America.”

“Will you die?” Of course he asked this. His mother had died. Who knew how many corpses he’d seen? Wagonloads of bodies must have been as familiar to him as milk trucks in Dogwood.

“We’ll be very careful.”

“Can Bucephalus come?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” He bent over the horse, whispering, his face hidden by straw-bright hair.

“Well then,” said the baron. “We’re taking a child.” He stood. “Hazel, will you prepare the baroness?” It was full dark. Lotte got a lantern and followed the baron outside, her stride matching his.

“Where are they going?” David asked fearfully.

“To do some work.” I didn’t ask if Minna was buried. Perhaps her body was simply left in whatever narrow space had housed her bed. “You and Bucephalus stay here while I—see the baroness.” I moved him near the stove. Then I found a bucket, soap, and sponge, and went upstairs to wash the body. I would rather have helped dig the grave. I’d never washed a corpse before.
Hazel,
I heard my father say,
certain things
must simply be done.
I did this job, brushed the thin hair, put her in a clean shift, and wrapped her in a sheet.

Past midnight, the baron and I carried his mother to the cemetery in a wheelbarrow we found in a storeroom. The grave was very shallow. Lotte had fashioned a cross. We covered the body as best we could, put rocks over the mound to discourage dogs, and said some verses. David watched, gripping my hand.

“Now I’m the last von Richthofen,” said the baron, surveying the three graves, each cruder than the last. “You were always the clever one,” Lotte had said. He was also the most faithful.

The baron and I brought our bags to his father’s office and packed the treasures. We’d have no protection against determined thieves but
might confound casual rifling. The Psalter fit in a hollowed-out geology text. The baron’s false-bottomed suitcase held the gauntlet and sword helm. Coins, smaller objects, and the best of the baroness’s jewelry we hid in the lining of our coats, hats, and heavy gloves, and the hollowed-out heel of the baron’s boots, adapted for this purpose. “Take some of her furs,” he advised. “We’ll need them for the child.”

“David’s documents?” I asked.

“We’ll get them made in Antwerp. There isn’t time now. We have to get out of Prussia.” We had a quick parting with Lotte. At daybreak, she’d join one of the streaming groups of refuges, making her way to Hannover. We made a nest of furs in the back of the Peugeot for David, who was feverish with excitement.

We’d started down the long drive when Lotte came panting after us with a gift for the baron. It was the last of the apples. “You were always my favorite, Georg. God keep you in America.”

As we reached the main road, David curled around his horse, never looking out the window. “By morning, the vandals will know that we’ve gone,” the baron said quietly. “They’ll take whatever Lotte leaves behind. Whether they move in or burn it for spite, I can’t go back.” The certainty seemed to comfort him. “How’s the child?”

“Asleep.”

“Just as well. He doesn’t have to know. He’s lost enough. ”

CHAPTER 20

In-Flew-Enza

W
e reached an American camp just after sunset. My “husband” was mute from shell shock, I explained to the sentry. His uniform and all our identification were stolen. I began explaining how we’d come to be in Prussia with a child.

“You’re Americans, and he fought with us. That’s enough. But all we’ve got is tents.”

“A tent is fine, isn’t it, dear?” I asked. The baron stared ahead.

“We’ve got a lot of shell shock,” the soldier said kindly. “Maybe he’ll come around. It’s funny how there’s guys who never saw the inside of a trench, never set foot in No Man’s Land or saw their buddies blown to bits, and they’re wandering around with their minds shot up just the same.”
Could Tom be wandering somewhere, his mind “shot up”?
I was glad David woke up then, whispering for water. “Go get something to eat, you folks. The boy must be hungry.”

Soldiers swarmed David as we ate our rations. A few reached to touch him. “Hey, Jack,” one called out. “Look here, a little kid. Isn’t yours about this size?”

“Should be,” Jack said, limping closer. “Hey, buddy.” David drew back from the haggard face. “Cat got your tongue?” Behind Jack, I nodded. David copied me. “Well sure. All us strange guys. You got yourself a horsey?” He pointed. David edged closer to the baron. “You take care of that horsey.”

“Did you know Tom Jamison, a pilot?” I interrupted. “He went missing in April. He was—my husband’s best friend.”

“Tom Jamison” ran through the crowd. No, nobody knew him. “We were infantry, though, ma’am,” Jack said. “But missing since April? That’s a long time.”

“Thank you,” I said quickly. “And we appreciate you letting us stay here.”

“You don’t wanna mess with Huns at night, soldiers
or
civilians. They’re all animals. Come on, fellas, the kid’s tired.” They wandered off, some looking back longingly at David.
An American family,
they might be thinking.
How strange in this wasteland
.

A cold mist swept over the camp. When David started coughing, I hurried him into our tiny tent and put him between us for warmth. “I saw a map,” the baron whispered. “There’s a British camp we can reach tomorrow.” We devised two stories: one for the road among Germans and another for Allies. On shipboard, we’d be an American family, and David must start learning English.

David was murmuring to Bucephalus. I risked a kiss on his sweaty thatch of hair. He didn’t turn away. “Good night, David.”

“Bucephalus says good night,” a small voice whispered.

The baron wished them both good night and then: “Good night. Hazel.”

“Good night, Baron.”

A pause. “Georg. Please.”

“Good night, Georg.”

David’s warm hand reached for mine. He coughed himself into restless sleeping.

T
HE
A
MERICANS ADVISED
an alternate route that might avoid minefields, but the sights were fearsome. Forests of scorched pine trees scraped gray skies like giant needles. Bloated corpses lined the road, scavenged by feral dogs, their snouts dripping blood. Charred houses were everywhere. I saw a woman being raped as other soldiers waited their turn, rifles drawn to guard their spoil. “I can’t help her,” Georg said. “They’d get me first and then go after you and David.” The truth of this was a sickening thud. In the minutes he’d left us to drain gasoline from an abandoned truck, a wild-eyed man had stalked me. Georg fired a shot that grazed the man’s head and made him run away. The woman’s screams tore my ear.

“Lotte was right. It’s just as well my mother isn’t here,” Georg said. “She’d lived inside those walls so long that she hardly knew the world in peacetime. How could she endure all this?”

“I hope he doesn’t remember any of it,” I said in English, glancing at David, whose head was pressed against the window as the horrors streamed past us. We tried diverting him with games and English words, but his attention steadily flagged; his brow burned. “Georg, could it be influenza?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. Influenza filled the castle and the village. The child was already starving. What resistance would he offer? Georg moved bags to make space for me in the back. David’s pulse was racing. His eyes grew red and weeping. “I hurt all over,” he moaned. Two days in my care and the child was slipping away. My chest ached with his. As quickly as influenza had seized his body, love had seized my heart.
Get better, get better,
each of my breaths implored.
I pressed my hand to the burning brow. No tremor. Nothing.
Save him. Put my strength in him.
I prayed, knowing full well that thousands of mothers were fighting me for the world’s small store of miracles. I was like the desperate seekers at my house whose mute eyes screamed:
Don’t waste your force on them. Save it all for
me!

When the road passed a fast-flowing stream, we risked stopping to wash David in cool water and perhaps bring down his fever. Working quickly, I barely noticed a rustling in the brush. Then so quickly they seemed simultaneous I saw a gray blur leaping at us from the right, heard a pistol shot, and felt a thud beside us. I screamed. David only stared.

“A wolf,” said Georg, calmly. “Going for the child.”

“You got him in the air, with one shot. How—”

“My father disliked making animals suffer. He had great compassion for his prey. But let’s go now. There may be another. They hunt in packs.”

We hurried David to the car. When Bucephalus fell from his sweaty hands, I tucked it in his shirt.

We reached the British camp after dusk. The sentry said we couldn’t stay, directing us to an American camp “somewhere” farther east. “We have a child,” I protested, hoping David wouldn’t cough. But he did, the little body bucking and thrashing.

“A child with influenza. Sorry, ma’am. Orders.”

“If we’re on the road at night, you know what happens.
We’re
not sick. My husband and I had it and recovered.”

“The child won’t leave this car,” Georg said, although we’d agreed that he wouldn’t speak.

The rifle clicked. “A damn Kraut.”

“He was an interpreter for the Allies,” I said frantically.

“As you see, sir, our documents are in order,” Georg continued smoothly, handing over a sheaf of papers. The soldier’s eyes widened.
With a glance over his shoulder, he pocketed the banknotes and pointed to a rutted field where we could pass the night.

Georg stayed with David as I searched for a doctor. I found only an exhausted Red Cross orderly. Weary eyes peered over a soiled gauze mask. He said he’d worked nearly forty hours straight. “The infirmary’s full,” a toneless voice declared. “More than full. Two in a bed until one of them dies. We lost three doctors and a nurse. I don’t even know if I’m alive myself right now.”