All God's Children (27 page)

“And then what? We start again as we did after the last war? And the world turns against us, and we are cast into poverty, and…”

These days she did not dissolve into tears. Instead she would simply break off her tirade in midsentence and sit staring at nothing as if in a trance. With the increase in air raids—or at least the warnings that sent them all scurrying to the cellar—Liesl had developed terrible nightmares and often awoke screaming, waking the entire household. And while Josef continued to make sojourns by train to distribute the leaflets of the White Rose in nearby towns and villages, Franz was relieved to see that Beth no longer accompanied him.

Wearily Franz crossed the lobby and climbed the stairs of the building where he had spent years of his life lecturing and meeting with students and shepherding them along. He had a lecture to deliver in less than an hour. He liked to arrive before the students so that he could go over his notes one last time. He was a good teacher—and a popular one.

When he entered the large, empty room that would soon be filled with the chatter of students, only a single lamp burned at the lectern. It took a moment before he noticed a man sitting on the aisle of the first row.

“Guten
Morgen, mein
Herr,” Franz called out as he made his way past rows of empty desks.
“Kann ich Ihnen helfen?”
He felt his heart rate increase as he realized that this was a Gestapo agent.

As if worn down by exhaustion, the agent rose and turned to face Franz. The man was Josef’s father—Detlef Buch.

“Ah, Herr Buch,” Franz said with a heartiness tempered by uncertainty. Josef’s father could be here because he wanted to talk with Franz about his son, or he could be here in a more official capacity. “Please sit. Sit. I have some time before the students arrive.” He indicated the chair that Herr Buch had vacated, but the man remained standing.

“I will not keep you. Your family has been kind to my son and my wife, and I appreciate that a great deal.”

“Josef is a gifted physician. He was one of my finest students.”

Buch waved away the compliments impatiently. “You and your family—your niece especially—should consider leaving Munich. I believe your wife has a sister in Eglofs?”

“She does, but I cannot leave my work here at the—”

“Later today—if it has not already happened, Herr Schneider— your work at the university will be terminated. It is not my habit to share such information, but as I have said, you and your wife are people my son respects and holds in the highest esteem.”

Franz found that he could no longer stand. He slumped into a chair, dropping his briefcase as he did. So many times he had imagined this moment, had dreaded opening the mail he received through the slit in his office door. He realized that he had been waiting for weeks— months—for the letter saying his services were no longer required. The moment was here, but in a way he had never imagined.

“How do you…why would you…”

“I was at a function last night, and I overheard a conversation between the head of your department and university chancellor Wust. Naturally when I heard your name mentioned, I paid attention.”

“Did they say why?” It was a foolish question. No reason was needed—at least not one that showed cause.

“They did not.” Detlef Buch put on his hat and pulled on his leather gloves, taking time to make sure each finger fit precisely into its designated space. “And I have said more than I should. Thank you and Frau Schneider for the care you have given my son.
Auf Wiederschauen
, Herr Professor.”

He walked to the exit, his normally erect posture marred by the slump of his shoulders and the slowed pace of his step. Franz heard the click of the door closing. Almost immediately it opened again as the first of the students arrived and took their places. Franz pushed himself up from the chair and retrieved his lecture notes from his briefcase.

His last lecture
.

He stared blindly at his notes, the words swimming before his eyes as he heard the hall fill with students, so full of life with their laughter and chatter. When the room grew quiet, he continued to stare at the water-stained papers before him. He allowed himself one moment of fantasy in which he imagined telling the students of his impending dismissal and envisioned them rising up and marching as one to the office of the chancellor to demand his reinstatement. The very idea of such an insurrection actually made him smile through his tears.

Then reality took charge. He stacked his notes and tapped them into alignment on the edge of the lectern before putting them back inside his briefcase. He switched off the lamp over the lectern and looked up at the students for the first time.

They all watched him, their expressions rapt with curiosity and interest. He had achieved what every professor dreams of—the undivided attention of this assembly. He could feel their eyes following him as he made his way to the exit, briefcase in hand. When he reached the door, he turned and looked back at the lectern that had been like a stage for him—a place where he had known his worth.

“Class dismissed,” he said softly and left the room.

The minute she entered the apartment after collecting Liesl from school, Beth knew something had changed. Instead of being in his study preparing a lecture or researching something for an article he intended to write, Uncle Franz was in the kitchen, standing by the open window, a bottle of milk in his hand.

In the winter the family often used the small balcony outside the window as a makeshift second refrigerator, setting the milk and butter and eggs out there to allow more space in the actual refrigerator for other things. But they had not needed to store anything out there for weeks. What food they had fit with room to spare. Times were hard—even harder than they had been before the holidays.

“Uncle?”

The glass bottle slipped from his fingers and shattered in the sink as his shoulders slumped and then shook violently. His tears came accompanied by audible gasps and moans.

“Papa!” Liesl screamed and ran to him, wrapping her arms around his legs.

Beth pulled the girl free. “Go to the bathroom and get me a wet cloth,” she instructed, trying to hold back her own fear. “Your father has cut his hand. Go.”

Once Liesl had left the room, Beth guided Franz to the nearest chair. “Let me see,” she said, taking hold of his hand. “It doesn’t appear to be too bad.” She looked at him then—at his red-rimmed eyes, his thin hair standing up in tufts as if he had repeatedly run his hands through it, his wire-rimmed glasses askew on his forehead. “Now calm yourself. Where is Aunt Ilse?”

“I sent her to the market. I told her….” He drew in a shuddering sigh. “I lied to her. I gave her money and told her they were selling oranges.”

“What has happened?”

Liesl came running just then with a cloth soaked and dripping all over the floor. “Here,” she said, thrusting the cloth at Beth and then immediately climbing onto her father’s lap and wrapping her arms around his neck. “It will be all right,” she assured him. “We can put a bandage on it until it heals.”

Beth took the cloth to the sink to wring out the excess water and wondered if the sound her uncle made was an attempt at laughter at his daughter’s unintentional analysis of their new situation. Outside the still-open kitchen window, a clock chimed the hour. Four thirty. Beth mentally ran through the usual schedule. On Thursdays, Uncle Franz had a late-afternoon lecture—a lecture that began at four o’clock. She turned to face him. Their gazes met, and he nodded in answer to her unspoken question.

“Liesl, why don’t you go into the front room so you can watch for your mother? We don’t want to upset her when she gets home and realizes that your father has cut himself.”

“I’ll tell her that everything is going to be all right so that she is not scared like she gets,” Liesl announced as she hurried off to the front room, closing the door behind her.

“Tell me,” Beth said as she tended to her uncle’s cut.

He released a shuddering sigh and then told her the story.

“Josef’s father? But how…?”

“He overheard a conversation at some social gathering he was attending. The fact is that he came to warn me because of Josef—out of gratitude. He also made it clear that we should go away—he suggested moving to Eglofs and living with Marta.”

“But Munich is your home.” She tied the ends of the gauze bandage and glanced at him. “Is this because of me? Is that the reason for…?”

He cupped her cheek. “Nein, Liebchen. You mustn’t think that. No, what I believe that Herr Buch was trying to tell me is that my activities are being observed. They may have even discovered my association with…”

“If they know about you, then they surely know about Josef.” Her heart hammered with a level of fear that she hoped never again to experience. “That is why Herr Buch came to you. Josef is also in danger, and he believes that if we leave Josef will follow us.”

“I believe that what he was telling me is that we are all in danger, Beth.” They heard the front door to the apartment open and close and Liesl’s excited but muffled voice telling her mother about Franz’s cut hand. “But he is fine. Beth bandaged it, and the bleeding has stopped, and…”

Beth prepared herself for her aunt’s collapse into hysteria as the door to the kitchen opened and Liesl burst in and ran to her father.

Aunt Ilse calmly set a small paper bag on the table and slowly began removing her gloves. “Beth, please take Liesl to the park,” she said quietly, then turned to Liesl. “Your father and I need to talk privately.”

It was evident that Liesl was as taken aback by this unexpected change in her mother’s demeanor as Beth was. “I’ll get my coat,” she said and left the room without a word of protest.

“It has happened?” Aunt Ilse said, looking from Uncle Franz to Beth and back again.

“Ja. Not officially but then I did not stop at my office. I am certain there is a letter waiting there.”

“We can speak with Josef,” Beth said. “It was his father who—”

“Beth, please attend to Liesl,” Aunt Ilse interrupted. “Your uncle and I need to consider what options lay ahead for us.”

“But—”

“Enough,” Ilse hissed, clenching her fists at her sides. “For once just do as I ask.”

Reluctantly Beth left the kitchen only to discover Liesl huddled in the foyer dressed for the winter’s day in her coat, hat, and mittens. She sat with her hands wrapped tightly around her knees as she squatted next to the door. “I’m scared,” she whispered. “I wish Josef was here.”

“So do I,” Beth agreed as she put on her coat. “I’ll tell you what. It’s almost time for his shift at the hospital to be over. Why don’t we go and meet him—surprise him?”

As she had hoped, the girl’s mood brightened immediately. “Let’s go,” she said as she leapt to her feet and flung the door open. “Josef will know what to do. He’s a doctor.”

But Josef was nowhere to be found—at least not any place that Beth felt she could take Liesl. Someone at the hospital told them he had left as soon as his shift ended. “Seemed in a terrible hurry about something,” the man added. And Beth remembered there was a meeting of the White Rose friends set for that evening.

“We should go home,” she told Liesl. “Your parents will wonder where we are.”

The two of them walked through the marketplace, taking the shortest route back to the apartment from the hospital. Beth was lost in thought and anxious to get Liesl home so she could make some excuse and go to the meeting and warn Josef and the others. She barely noticed that Liesl was also unusually quiet.

“Beth?” The girl’s voice shook. At first Beth thought it was the cold, but then she saw how Liesl looked up at her, her face puckered into a worried frown. “Is something really bad going to happen to us?”

“Of course not,” she replied, stunned at the child’s perception of the events that had unfolded that afternoon. “It has just been a difficult day for your father and—”

“Something has happened, and I know that it made Papa very sad. Even when the bombs fall, Papa is never sad. He is always singing and telling me stories and holding tight to Mama and—”

Beth stopped and knelt down so that she and Liesl were looking directly at each other. She placed her hands on the girl’s shoulders and told her the truth as she knew it at that moment. “Liesl, we may be going away for a while—all of us. We may go to stay for a while with your Tante Marta and your cousins. You would enjoy that, wouldn’t you?”

Liesl looked doubtful but nodded, even as her eyes filled with tears.

“I mean think about it. There are almost never any bombs in the country. No need to be afraid when the planes come. No need to hide in the cellar. You can play outdoors with your cousins and—”

“But Papa cannot come, can he? He has to be at his work and—”

“No, Liesl. He is going to find another job.”

Her eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Why? Why will he find a new job?”

“Because if we move to the country—”

“He has been dismissed. My teacher said….” Her eyes widened in horror, and she began to howl like an animal caught in a trap.

Beth pulled her close as much to muffle her cries as to comfort her, for they were beginning to attract the attention of passersby. “Liesl, it will be all right. You’ll see.” She hoped that she was not lying to this child who had become as dear to her as a sister.