The Things We Cherished (26 page)

But in the past few weeks the downward spiral seemed, if not to actually have reversed itself, at least to have reached a plateau. There was a kind of quiet and the Gestapo was less prevalent on the street. He’d heard whispers, also, that the Soviets were advancing,
and that all available Germans were being redirected to the front. Rumors were that the deportations had died down too, though perhaps that was because the Nazis had simply concluded that there were no more Jews to be taken.

Almost none. Roger’s stomach tightened as Magda appeared in his mind. A year had passed since the Nazis had visited the house, yet his heart still seemed to stop each time a car rumbled down their street, not beating again until the sound of the engine faded in the distance. Though she seemed to have escaped detection for now, nothing, save the Reich’s defeat, would ease his fears. Of course the end of the war would likely signal Hans’s permanent return and it seemed a cruel irony that the very thing that could ensure Magda’s safety would surely end their affair as well.

He washed and dressed, then made his way downstairs. Magda stood in the doorway to the kitchen, already wearing her coat. She crouched to adjust the baby’s hat low and snug around her brow.

“Darling, surely you aren’t going out?” he asked. It was a familiar refrain—him begging her to stay home because it was too dangerous on the street, her insisting that if she allowed them to stop her then they had already won. But even with lectures canceled he usually departed for the library to work on his thesis before she started her day and he could tell by her guilty expression now that she more often than not refused to respect his wishes. He was reminded once again that there was a part of her he did not know, that in some ways she would always remain a stranger to him.

“I have to go to market,” she replied. “Frau Hess said there’s milk to be had.” She was going for the child. Magda would not pass up an opportunity to find nourishment for Anna. Her own milk had dried up just a few months after Anna was born, owing, he suspected, to the limited food that was available, as well as the slight nature of her build. They weren’t starving, but more and more
often their meal consisted mainly of a watery
eintopf
stew, intended to stretch whatever beans or potatoes could be had.

“Let me go for you,” he suggested.

She shook her head. “I always go. You would only raise suspicion.”

“But it’s too—”

“I’ll not be a prisoner in my own home,” she retorted, cutting him off. Her eyes widened angrily. There was something in her determination that bespoke a darker side of her past, a place to which she would not be returned. He wanted to ask what had happened but he knew it was not the time, and that she would not answer.

There was a moment of stubborn silence as they stared at each other, neither backing down. Magda adjusted her cuffs. “All right,” she said, relenting unexpectedly. There were circles under her eyes that betrayed a lack of sleep. It wasn’t the child, he reflected, who was keeping her up nights. Born in the era of the bombing raid, Anna had quickly grown into a sound sleeper, not roused even as the house shook. No, it was worry that disturbed Magda’s sleep, though whether for herself and Anna, or Hans, or all of them he did not know.

“Thank you,
Liebchen
,” he said.

There was a scuffling by his feet. “Lee
chen.
” Anna raised her tattered rag doll, imitating him. “Lee
chen.
” Roger looked from the child to her mother, then back again, and he could not help but chuckle at the child’s attempt. Magda joined him and soon they were both laughing so much harder than the moment seemed to warrant, a grateful respite from the heaviness around them. For if they could still find a moment’s lightness, he reflected, perhaps things weren’t so bad after all.

Anna watched, wide-eyed and earnest, puzzled to have generated such a reaction. She held out her arms and Roger picked her up,
his laughter subsiding. He exchanged uneasy glances with Magda. They would have to be more careful, now that seventeen-month-old Anna saw and repeated so much. He handed the child to Magda, fighting the urge to kiss her as he did so. Then he turned and walked from the house.

He returned that night a bit later than usual, detained at the library by a conversation with one of his professors. He hesitated at the front door, still feeling that he should knock as he had the day he arrived. The perennial guest. Inside the foyer, he paused. The air seemed different and for a moment he wondered if Hans had come home unexpectedly. But it was not that kind of change; instead of seeming supercharged, the house felt hollow.

“Hello,” he called. He did not use Magda’s name, not wanting to sound overly familiar in case his instincts were mistaken and Hans had in fact returned. There was no response. Roger’s skin prickled. Magda was always home this time of day, feeding Anna and preparing dinner. He walked through the kitchen but the countertops were scrubbed clean, the dishes that lay drying in the rack this morning now put away.

Willing himself to breathe calmly, he continued swiftly to the dining room. Nothing here seemed amiss, a thought that gave him fleeting comfort. Then he noticed Anna’s milk cup lying sideways on the table, its precious contents spilled onto the placemat in a pool. The subtle message gripped his throat with an icy hand. Magda never would have permitted the child to be so careless, or allowed the spill to remain there. Something wasn’t right.

He went back to the foyer, took the stairs two at a time. “Magda,” he called now, not caring who heard him. He checked each room, including the water closet, but they were all empty. Then he raced back to the bedroom and pulled back the armoire. “Magda,” he called into the dark gaping hole in the wall.

He returned downstairs, sinking to the bottom step in disbelief. Magda was gone, and Anna too. Had the Gestapo come again? He tried to tell himself to be calm. She could have gone visiting. But Magda did not have any friends, at least none that he knew of, and surely she would have left a note. No, a voice down deep said, full of certainty and foreboding. She had been taken by the Nazis, he was sure of it.

But if the Nazis had arrested Magda, surely there would have been signs of a struggle. Even as he thought this, though, he knew that Magda would not have fought in front of Anna and risked frightening the child or worse. With no time to flee or hide, she would have cooperated because it was the safest thing to do, ensuring their well-being, at least in the short run. Because she understood, despite being married to Hans, that resistance under such circumstances was futile.

What had brought the Gestapo this time? If it had been simple questions again, Magda and Anna would still be here. Had someone learned of Magda’s background and tipped them off? It could have been one of the neighbors, like the family down the street who flew the large flag with the swastika from their second-floor balcony. Or perhaps an enemy of Hans—though it was hard to imagine anyone bearing ill will toward his charismatic brother, surely Hans had angered someone along the way in his work.

Roger’s mind flashed back to the conversation he and Magda had that morning, the debate over whether it was too dangerous for her to go to market, her acquiescing to his request that she remain home. Now, looking around the empty kitchen, he cursed his own stubbornness. He had thought he knew best. But if Magda had gone out as she usually did, she and Anna might not have been here when the Nazis came. He had, in fact, caused her to be arrested.

I should have been here, Roger berated himself. But to do what,
exactly? If Hans’s contacts and influence hadn’t been enough to protect Magda, there was little Roger could have done. He wished more than anything, though, that he had taken the chance and risked that one final embrace.

Enough, he thought. Regrets will not help Magda and Anna now. Breathe. Think.

Hans appeared in his mind. Surely his brother, with all of his connections, would be able to help. And he could not refuse, now that the worst had happened. He needed to find Hans. But how?

He ran back upstairs to Hans’s office and opened the drawer his brother had indicated during their last conversation. Then he stopped short. The drawer was filled with money, neatly bound stacks of reichsmarks, dollars, and pounds. Why would one leave such a sum in a place where it could so easily be found? Because, he realized, it was intended to distract whoever found it from what lay beneath. Roger removed the money from the drawer, pried up the bottom. There were papers, undoubtedly related to Hans’s work. He thumbed through, searching for Hans’s contact information.

A minute later he found it, a paper listing addresses in Berlin, Warsaw, Prague. Where was Hans now? Berlin, he thought, recalling a vague reference his brother had made before his departure. Roger grabbed it and started from the office.

On the street he stopped again. He would send the telegram to Hans, of course, but there was no telling whether his brother was actually at the address now, or how long it would take to reach him if he was not. Magda might not have that kind of time. There had to be something else he could do.

He looked at the house to the right of theirs. It was occupied by the Baders, the elderly couple Magda had once mentioned. His breath caught. He did not dare to hope that Magda had gone to
them, that they had been able to help before the Gestapo came. But perhaps they had seen something.

He walked to their door and rapped on it loudly, fighting the urge to knock a second time immediately. Frau Bader opened the door a crack and he could see that she was wearing an apron. “Excuse me,” he began, “I’m sorry to interrupt at dinnertime. But I was wondering, that is, my brother’s wife and child, they seem to be gone. Perhaps you saw something …”

The woman eyed him warily, then shook her head. Today’s dragnet had just missed her house and she would not risk its return by helping him.

Wordlessly, Frau Bader closed the door, leaving Roger standing on the front step alone. He considered knocking again, demanding answers. Then he decided against it—he didn’t want to cause a fuss and he sensed from the old woman’s steely demeanor that she would not be swayed. But the fear in her eyes told him all that he needed to know about what had happened to Magda and Anna that day.

Magda. His anxiety grew as her face appeared in his mind. Suddenly, he heard his brother’s voice, as vividly as though he were standing beside him:
Take care of Magda if anything happens
. Roger’s guilt rose to full boil. Of course, when Hans said that, he had anticipated something happening to himself; despite the concerns Roger had voiced, Hans had never imagined it might be Magda whom something bad befell.

What would Hans do if he was here? He would go to Nazi headquarters, Roger decided, and ask—no, demand—information about his wife. So that was what Roger had to do now. He started into the street, then stopped again. How could he possibly manage it? Hans was important, and he had a way about him that made
people bend to his will. But Roger was, well, just Roger. There was no other choice, he decided. He had to try.

Ten minutes later he reached the edge of the market square,
der Ring
, as the Germans called it. It was lined by tall row houses, their brightly colored facades now faded and covered with soot. He raced across the square toward the turreted Rathaus, which sat at the center. The gothic town hall had been expropriated by the Nazis as their headquarters and a large swastika flag now marred the ornate front of the red brick building. The air seemed to have grown suddenly colder and a sharp breeze blew, sending old newspapers and other debris dancing along the pavement.

In the doorway he stopped, scanning the names of the officials. Gauleiter Koch, he read, his eyes stopping on a nameplate halfway down the wall. Hans had referenced the official once as someone with whom he had to deal. “A total ass,” he said, “but perhaps a bit less of a Nazi than some of them.”

Roger walked inside, looking straight ahead as he passed the guards’ desk, trying not to run. A moment later he stepped off the lift at the second floor. Koch’s office occupied a corner suite that had once belonged to the deputy mayor.

“Dykmans,” he said by way of introduction to the receptionist, who seemed to be packing her belongings for the day. The woman, blond and too heavily made up, raised an eyebrow. Roger took a deep breath. “Hans Dykmans.”

“Is Gauleiter Koch expecting you? It’s rather late.”

“Yes,” he lied again. As the receptionist disappeared through a door behind her desk, Roger tapped his foot impatiently, trying not to pace. In the corner, a grandfather clock ticked noisily. Watching it, Roger felt his anxiety rise—each second that passed put Magda farther away, lessening his chances of getting to her.

The office door swung open and a short, thick man walked out
wearing his overcoat. “
Guten
—” Koch stopped his hearty greeting in mid-sentence, caught off guard by a visitor other than the one he had expected.

“I’m Roger Dykmans, Hans’s brother,” Roger said, stepping forward quickly and shaking his hand. Struggling to keep his voice calm, he continued before the man could protest the fraudulent introduction. “I’m sorry to call unannounced, but it is a very urgent matter. It will only take a moment.”

“Come in,” Koch said reluctantly. The office was adorned with Nazi paraphernalia, and photos of Koch and various people whom Roger assumed were important in the Reich. Behind the desk, wide windows offered a panorama of the city below, steeples etched against the late-day sky as the sun sank low to the rooftops. “What is it?”

“My brother’s wife, Magda, has disappeared.” He swallowed. “Their daughter, too. I came home to find them gone.”

Roger could tell from Koch’s expression that the news did not come as a surprise. “They are Jews.” It was not a question.

Roger hesitated. “I don’t know,” he lied. “She may have some Jewish blood. But my brother, as you know, does not.”

Koch sat down in his chair, exhaled impatiently. “The orders have been to round up all the Jews now, even partial Jews or those who intermarried.”