All God's Children (14 page)

“Perhaps one day,” Anja would murmur wistfully, “we will go there with the children and live in peace.”

But they all understood that these idyllic evenings could not last. On the third such night Beth reminded them all that her aunt and uncle were due home in just two days. This would be their last night together for a while because the following night Anja and Benjamin and the children would have to leave.

It was that night that Josef excused himself, went up to his room in the attic, and came back a moment later with a small radio. He plugged it in, and to their amazement through whistles of static they heard the unmistakable voice of Winston Churchill addressing the people of Great Britain. As the four of them sat with their heads bent toward the radio, trying to catch every word, they took hold of each other’s hands, forming a circle of solidarity around the radio. And when the static finally drowned out the British prime minister’s voice, they remained sitting in silence, drawing strength from one another as they considered their futures. Beth did not know what the others prayed for or thought about during those moments. For her there was but one thought: getting Anja and her family to a place where they would be safe until this horrid war could be brought to its end.

With no idea how she and Josef might manage that, the following day she bought some peroxide and told Anja as a first step to lighten Benjamin’s and the children’s dark hair. Anja already had the golden blond hair and Aryan features preferred by the current regime—even though most Bavarians, not to mention Hitler himself, had brown hair. Still, if the entire family were fair-haired, they might be able to move around more freely.

She had left them to this task while she went to the market and stood in the long line of people waiting to see what they might be able to buy with their ration stamps. Across Germany food was becoming increasingly scarce, and usually Beth felt fortunate to be able to trade the family’s food stamps for a few potatoes and black bread, sometimes a small stunted onion, and if she was very blessed a beef salami sausage. The wait was over an hour, and Beth came away with very little—a small loaf of stale black bread, five small potatoes, and one orange.

“Happy Christmas from der Führer,” the woman distributing the oranges announced, presenting each small, hard, green piece of fruit as if it were the gold laid at the manger by one of the three kings.

As Beth trudged home, she mentally ran through what supplies were still in the pantry that she might be able to give Anja for the journey ahead. Then as she approached the bakery, she heard someone call out to her.

“Beth! We’re back!” She looked up to see Liesl leaning over the shallow balcony outside the apartment’s kitchen. “We brought a present for you. I’m coming down. Mama says we can buy something at the bakery.”

Beth’s mind was racing along with her heart as she waited for Liesl to reach the street. She glanced up at the attic window and thought she saw the curtain move. Was that Anja or Benjamin? She saw Liesl exiting the street entrance to the apartments. Her cousin ran to meet her, taking her hand and dancing alongside her, her eyes sparkling with excitement as they walked the rest of the way together.

“You weren’t due back until tomorrow,” Beth said, glancing toward the attic window again, and this time she was certain that the curtain moved. Either Anja or Benjamin had to be keeping watch. Hopefully they recognized the problem and would take up their place in the closet Beth had shown them behind the trunks and boxes of off-season clothing that Ilse kept stored there.

“Mama says we have ever so much to do to prepare for Christmas. She is feeling much much better,” Liesl said. “And Mama says I mustn’t expect that you will have presents for us but that’s fine because Mama says presents are not important. Our best present is that we are all together and safe and…” She frowned. “But Mama says this might be our last Christmas with you for a while.”

Beth’s mind was so focused on what to do about Anja that she was barely listening to her cousin’s chatter until this last statement caught her attention. “Why? Are you going somewhere?”

“No, silly. Mama says you have to go back to America and the sooner the better,” she added. “She says it’s not safe for you here now that we’re enemies and all.” She sighed. “I so wish we could be friends, Beth.”

“You and I are not enemies, Liesl,” Beth reminded her as they entered the bakery.

“I know
we’re
friends—and family, Beth. I meant our countries— Germany and the United States.” Liesl pressed her hands to the glass display cases as she admired the pastries.

“That one,” she announced, pointing to a Christmas
Stollen
fat with dried fruit and frosted with a white sugary confection. Once the purchase had been made, Beth took her time climbing the stairs to their apartment. She needed every second to think through how she might manage the next several hours before her aunt and uncle went to bed and she could somehow get Anja and the others out of the house.

Liesl ran up the stairs and down the corridor. “She’s here,” she shouted. “Beth is here.”

Beth’s heart caught in her throat when she walked into the kitchen to leave the bag of food and saw her aunt coming down the stairs from the attic. “What on earth has that man been doing up there?” she said testily. “It smells of something horrid—some chemical—this towel reeks of it.”

She was holding one of the blue bath towels that had hung next to the sink. It was clearly damp and stained where the peroxide had splashed and distorted the color.

“I am sure that—”

“I thought I had made it clear that he was not to be here while we were gone,” Aunt Ilse continued as she studied the towel more closely. “Some experiment, no doubt. Well, Herr Doktor Buch needs to understand that we can’t easily replace things like towels and clothing and such.”

“Is Uncle Franz here?”

“He went to the university.” Aunt Ilse reached for the bag that Beth had carried home from the market.
“Das ist alles?”

“I’m afraid so. I’ll go back tomorrow. Perhaps with Christmas coming they will have more. There’s an orange that might ripen if we save it for Liesl’s stocking,” she whispered, hoping to distract her aunt from the other contents of the bag. She might be able to manage to take at least half the bread and perhaps two of the potatoes and give them to Anja if Aunt Ilse did not unpack the food. “I’ll just put these things away,” she said, taking the bag back from her aunt. “How are Marta and the family?”

Aunt Ilse actually laughed. “My sister was intent on making sure we returned with enough milk and cheese to last through the month. I think she must have bought one farmer’s entire supply and…”

Barely listening to her aunt’s chatter, Beth gripped the edge of the sink and bowed her head. Everything was wrong here. It was wrong of her to keep secrets from her aunt and uncle. It was wrong of her to make such an important decision without first seeking counsel from her Quaker family. Yet to admit that she was hiding a Jewish family in the attic would surely send her aunt into a fresh cycle of the hysteria that for the time being she seemed to have overcome.

“Beth, come up to the attic,” Liesl shouted as she started up the stairs. “I want to show you the presents I made for everyone—well, not yours, of course, but—”

“Let’s do that in our room,” Beth hurried to suggest. “There was a spill in the attic, and it smells up there.”

“Ja.” Liesl agreed as she reached the top step and sniffed the air. “But I want to hide the presents. Mama will never think to search up here.”

Beth forced a laugh even as her heart pounded so furiously that she thought she might not be able to breathe. “Your mother is standing right down there in the front hall and now knows your plan,” she said. “Let me help you find a better hiding place.”

To her relief Liesl ran down the stairs and on down the hall to their bedroom. For the next half hour, Beth admired the crudely woven pot holder that Liesl had made for her mother and the rock she had painted for her father. “It’s a paperweight,” Liesl confided.

“It’s wonderful,” Beth assured her.

“And this is for Dr. Buch,” the girl said as she held up a peppermint candy cane. “Aunt Marta brought it from Switzerland for me, but I’d rather give it to him. Mama doesn’t like him, but I think that he’s awfully nice—don’t you, Beth?”

“I do, and I think he will like your present very much.”

“Do you think he will have something for me?”

“That’s not important, Liesl.”

Her cousin sighed. “I know. That’s what Mama keeps saying. ‘It’s not the gift but the giving.’ But I do so love getting presents.”

Outside their closed bedroom door, they heard the front door open and shut. “It’s Papa,” Liesl whispered. “Quick, we have to hide these.”

Beth helped the girl find hiding spots for all three gifts and then followed her out into the hallway. Her uncle and Josef were standing in the foyer. Josef was hanging up his coat and putting on his slippers while her uncle told him some news he’d heard about new regulations at the university.

“I have a secret,” Liesl announced in a singsong voice, and both men smiled at her. “And it’s something to do with you, Herr Doktor Buch.”

He crouched down to her height. “Would this secret have anything to do with the coming of Christmas?”

Liesl giggled and nodded. “You’ll never guess—not in a thousand years.”

“Well, I have a secret as well, and it has something to do with you.” He tweaked her nose and got to his feet. He glanced toward the ceiling and then at Beth.

She could only offer a half shrug in return. It would appear that
their
secret was safe, but she could not really be sure until she went to the attic to check. What if Anja and Benjamin had decided to slip away as soon as they saw her uncle’s car arrive? But she had seen the curtain move. Still, her aunt had been in the attic when she and Liesl entered the house. Could she have been the person at the window? And if so, where were Anja and Benjamin and the children?

Beth was still trying to think of some excuse for returning to the attic when Aunt Ilse stepped into the hallway from the kitchen. She frowned when she saw Josef.

“Herr Doktor Buch,” she said in a quiet formal tone that was not at all the way she usually addressed him.

“Welcome home, Frau Schneider,” Josef said. “It sounds like you and the professor and Liesl enjoyed the skiing.”

Aunt Ilse ignored his attempts at small talk. “I believe this belongs to you,” she said, handing him a small book. “I found it in our niece’s bedroom.” She wrapped her crossed arms with the skirt of her apron and waited for his explanation.

Beth looked more closely at the volume and recognized it as a book of medical terms that Josef had brought for Benjamin to study after Anja had told him that her husband had one day hoped to attend medical school. Beth had suggested that Anja and Benjamin study in her room while she and Josef got the children settled for the night in the attic.

“I…it…” Beth began. She did not wish to lie to her aunt, but what explanation could there be other than that Josef had been in her room and here was the proof?

“Frau Schneider, I had intended to speak with you and the professor later this evening, but this…” He glanced at the book and then back at Ilse. The man was actually offering Beth’s aunt a sheepish smile. “You see, the fact of the matter is that I have become quite fond of your niece. I know that in many ways you and Professor Schneider still think of her as that teenager who came to live with you after Liesl was born, but to me she is….”

He paused and allowed his gaze to rest on Beth. “To me, she is the one true beautiful reality in the midst of all that surrounds us. Her courage alone inspires me—her determination to stay here where she is needed when anyone else might have thought first of herself.”

“It is not our way to think of ourselves before others,” Aunt Ilse murmured as she glanced from Josef to Beth and back again.

“Are you going to marry Beth?” Liesl asked.

Aunt Ilse startled like a horse caught unaware. “Liesl, this is an adult conversation. Go into the kitchen.” She cast about for some way to soften her reprimand when Liesl’s eyes filled with tears. “Go on. Beth brought you a surprise from the market today.”

As soon as the child had run to the kitchen and they heard her squeal of delight when she obviously discovered the orange, Aunt Ilse turned back to Josef. “You still have not answered the question of how you came to be in my niece’s room, Doktor.”

“Your niece is a twenty-five-year-old woman, Frau Schneider—an adult. If she were living in her own apartment, would you deny her the pleasure of guests?”

“Guests, of course, but—”

“We were talking about the future, and I mentioned that I had thought of perhaps one day becoming a nurse,” Beth interrupted. This was the truth. “Josef brought the book after that.” Again the truth although not exactly the whole of it.

“And you could not hold these conversations here in the study or kitchen?”

“I think we both felt safer in the back of the apartment away from the street,” Josef said, as if the thought had just occurred to him. “We spend enough time in the cellar during the air raids, and the kitchen can be oppressive with the reminder of so little food. And you asked that we not heat the other rooms unnecessarily,” he reminded her.

“He’s right, Ilse,” the professor said. “The radiator in the girls’ room is by far the most productive in the entire apartment.”

“We did nothing but talk, Tante Ilse,” Beth added.

Her aunt fixed her gaze on each of them in turn. “From this day forward any ‘talking’ will take place in any room of your choice in the front of the house,” she instructed. “Is that very clear?”

Josef and Beth both nodded, and Aunt Ilse turned on her heel and marched back down the hall to the kitchen.

“I warned you,” Uncle Franz said with a grin as he shook his finger at Josef. “My wife misses nothing.” He sobered and locked his gaze with Josef’s. “We will talk later on that other matter?”

Josef nodded, and when Uncle Franz left them to return to his study, Josef moved a step closer to Beth. “Do you think they left?”