Wildflowers of Terezin (21 page)

"Well, yes, but—"

"Just let me try something. Where did you say Fru Ibsen's coffin was delivered?"

"Probably at the service entry, but what does that—"

"Good. That's where I want to meet you at—" he looked at his watch—"nine-thirty."

He didn't wait for her answer, just hurried outside. Once out in the cold mid-morning sun, however, he had to stop and ask himself.

What am I thinking?

BISPEBJERG HOSPITAL, KØBENHAVN

MONDAY MORNING, 4 OKTOBER 1943

Where words fail, music speaks.

—HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

H
alf an hour later Steffen burst into the Ibsen Boghandel, forgetting to check if Hans Christian Andersen was in the front widow. Never mind. He had no time for that kind of nonsense. He waited until a spindly older woman finished buying a used romance, then stepped up to the counter.

"I need the keys to your vehicle, Henning," he whispered.

His brother turned to face him, and Steffen stopped short.Henning's face looked badly bruised, with dark welts on his face and around his right eye. A gash on his chin had been taped together, and his right hand wrapped in bandages.

"What happened to you? You look . . ."

"Don't say it. I'll be fine."

"You look like you were run over by a truck."

"That's not far from the truth. It's a long story. But what are you doing here?"

Steffen wasn't sure if he should press his brother harder to find out what had happened to him. Henning didn't look eager to share details. But now there wasn't time.

"Actually, we're going to have a funeral, and we're going to get some of those people out of Bispebjerg. I just need the vehicle, and I was going to ask you to help me, but . . . where are the keys?"

"You don't know what you're asking, Steffen." Henning looked around to be sure no one overheard. "First of all, I can't just be driving that thing around in the middle of the day. Especially now with my hand. I can't hardly work the cash register, much less drive. And second of all, what are you talking about, a funeral?"

"You know, a funeral. It's where you put bodies in a casket—in this case, three bodies—and, yes, I know that's going to be a tight fit. But we need to transport them from the hospital to the coast, where they'll be transferred to a fishing boat. Do you understand now what I'm saying?"

Henning didn't have to ponder very long before he motioned for a single customer to follow him to the front of the store.

"Sorry, sir, but we're closing for lunch," he explained, opening the front door. The confused-looking older man set down his book but followed him outside. Henning wasted no time locking up. "We eat lunch a little early around here. Be back in just a little while."

They left the customer standing on the narrow sidewalk, while Henning led the way around the building and back around to the garage in the adjoining back alley. Steffen didn't bother telling him that this would probably end up being a long lunch hour.

"By the way," Steffen asked, "you don't happen to have a suit, do you?"

Henning gave him a stern look. "Do I look like I have a suit?"

"Just thought I'd ask. I thought it would look better if the pallbearer was a little more, you know, dressed for the occasion."

"Oh, so now I'm a one-handed pallbearer?"

"You've never been one before, have you?"

"Can't say that I have." After a quick look up and down the alley, he pulled open the garage door with his good hand and stepped inside. When Steffen followed, Henning paused a moment, and with a frown tossed the keys at him.

"You're driving the ambulance."

A moment later they were speeding through the narrow streets of København on their way to the hospital. Steffen had to admit he was a little rusty in his driving skills, but it wasn't his first time.

"You drive like an old lady." Henning told him, crossarmed."Where are we going?"

"Sorry about that," Steffen steered the ambulance into the hospital campus, barely missing a curb. "The service entry.Hanne will be waiting for us."

And she was, just inside the large double doors through which hospital supplies and such were loaded and unloaded, where trucks routinely backed up. Only this time it was Henning's ambulance. They hopped out, the pastor and his assistant. Once inside, Steffen looked around the storage area to find not one casket, but two. Both looked ornate in carved rosewood and brass handles, certainly not cheap.Steffen turned to see Hanne enter the loading area.

"Fru Ibsen has good taste, has she?" he asked.

Hanne shrugged. "Her husband owned one of the larger department stores downtown before he died. And of course she is, as you've seen, a little . . . eccentric."

"Then she won't mind if we borrow her casket for a few hours?" Steffen walked over to the caskets, checking inside to make sure. He thought he heard Hanne gasp, and he looked over to see that she had noticed his brother's injuries.

"You need someone to look at that," she said, examining his head. He pulled away like a little boy from his mother.

"It's nothing," he said, "and it's not why I'm here."

"What about your hand?" She persisted.

"What about it? Listen, nurse. We came here to help you, and I happen to still have one good hand at the moment.Let's just get it done, all right?"

She appeared to bite her tongue but finally nodded and backed away.

"All right, then. But I wish you'd stop by the emergency ward a little later to have a doctor get a better look."

"We'll see."

By the way he said it, Steffen knew Henning had no intention of having a doctor—or anyone else—get a better look.And there was nothing Steffen could do about it.

"Maybe we should get these people loaded up?" Steffen suggested. "Three people only."

"You're not saying what I think you're saying?" Hanne turned her attention to him.

"Don't tell them what you're doing. Just bring them here any way you can. If there are any very small children, I think you'd better sedate them. We may be stopped, you know."

By that time Hanne's eyes had widened, but she caught on quickly and nodded. And while she left to fetch their first passengers, the two men wrestled the nearest casket closer to the door.

"This thing is heavy enough," mumbled Henning, beads of sweat rising on his forehead, "even without the people inside."

Sure enough it was. And it didn't help that Henning could only use his one hand. But just a few minutes later Hanne returned, pushing a gurney covered by a large sheet. Behind her a young orderly pushed a young woman holding what looked like a rag doll, limp and lifeless. The orderly looked at the open casket in confusion, then back at the woman she'd been pushing.

"I don't understand," she told Hanne.

"You don't have to." Hanne patted the girl on the shoulder and led her back to the door through which they'd come."Now just go back to what you were doing, and keep this to yourself. Do you understand?"

The young girl nodded solemnly and hurried away. For their sakes Steffen hoped she would do as Hanne had told her, but there wasn't time to worry about that now. Hanne pulled away the sheet from her gurney, revealing a young man whose face looked as white as the sheet he had been hidden under. But he seemed more worried about the other woman, who by now was sobbing.

"Who would hurt my baby?" asked the young woman, holding the limp child close. "Who would think of hurting my child? Why would they—"

Hanne came up beside the distraught woman and slipped an arm around her.

"No one's going to hurt her, I promise." She led her slowly toward the casket. "But you know that if she cried, someone might hear her, right? That's why we had to sedate her."

The mother, who couldn't have been more than nineteen or twenty, nodded silently. Meanwhile Hanne continued to calm her with a soothing voice.

"Now she'll wake up in three or four hours. But those pills you have—give her one more as soon as she wakes, understand? Just one." She looked at the young man. "Dad, can you make sure that happens? Make sure she swallows it, even if she doesn't want to. That way she'll still be relaxed on the way over to Sweden. Do you understand?"

This time the young man nodded but they could not console the weeping mother.

"Please." Steffen tried his best. "You'll need to settle down a bit so we can get you into the . . . box. But don't worry about anything. You'll have plenty of air to breathe—we'll make sure of that. And we'll get you out just as soon as we've reached a safe waiting place on the coast. All right?"

His voice must have calmed them, because now the couple looked a little less likely to break down completely as they stepped gingerly into the padded casket and curled up inside with their sleeping child. But the young mother held up her hand and looked first at Henning, then at Steffen.

"Please. I don't suppose either of you know the
Tefilat HaDerech."

She looked so desperate that Steffen honestly wished he did. Instead Henning looked to his brother for help.

"Do you have any idea what she's talking about?"

Steffen nodded. "The Traveler's Prayer. I'm . . . I'm sorry.I know what it is, but I don't know the words. Perhaps you'd allow me—"

"Excuse me." Hanne interrupted softly. "But I know it."

Perhaps the couple wasn't used to having a Danish nurse lead them in such a prayer, but in the absence of a rabbi, well.The young mother nodded as Hanne recited the Hebrew words in her soft, musical voice: