Wildflowers of Terezin (28 page)

Steffen clutched the flashlight as if his life depended on it. Actually, perhaps Hanne's did. And Aron's, too, naturally.He tried to settle his wildly beating heart, telling himself that the boat would still take these two to safety and that nothing had changed.

But things
had
changed. Everything had changed, now that Hanne was leaving. And as much as he wanted the best for her, as much as he wanted her safety, a part of him just wanted to hide her away in the church a little longer. Just a few more days.

But he knew he couldn't think like that. Now he needed to concentrate on doing his job. So he pulled the shade aside slightly, as Henning had instructed, and pointed his flashlight straight out toward the water. Now would be the time.

"Four blinks," Henning whispered.

"I know, I know." Steffen counted one, two, three, four.

And they waited. Steffen strained his eyes to see a return signal.

Nothing.

"Did they see you?" asked Aron.

"Keep still," Henning told him.

"I was just—"

"Nej, Aron. From now on you keep your mouth shut, and you just do what I tell you. Understand?"

"I understand." Hanne answered for them, her quiet voice soothing the tension. And Aron must have left it at that.Well, if he was smart, he would—and Steffen wasn't at all certain of that. But Henning ordered his brother to try again.

"They'd better be there," Steffen whispered between clenched teeth, just as a faint return blink told him they had caught the attention of their offshore contact. There!

"All right, good." Henning obviously noticed the signal, as well. "Now we give them four minutes to beach their boat, and then out you go, Aron. After that Hanne, you count to ten and follow. Don't run. Just hurry."

In the moonlight he pointed to Hanne, and she nodded as Steffen silently counted the seconds, waiting. With the door slightly ajar, he thought he heard a crunch of a boat on the beach.

"Go!" whispered Henning, and without another word Aron bolted.

"I said, don't run!" Henning tried to warn him, but Aron tripped off the cottage's front step and landed with a thud and a grunt in the low beach grass.

"That guy's single-handedly going to get us killed," said Henning.

"Three, four, five . . ." Now Steffen counted, and he squeezed Hanne's hand as she stood by the front door, waiting for her chance at freedom. She returned the squeeze, as if she might hold on.

"Eight, nine, ten," Steffen whispered as she released his hand and quietly stepped out the door into the darkness."Now!"

What happened next must have taken just a matter of seconds, though it seemed to Steffen an eternity, and slower: First the sound of the dogs, before they even saw the bright flashlights from behind a nearby cottage. Henning swore when he realized what was happening, because suddenly this was not going according to plan.

"Where did they come from?" asked Henning, but his reaction was swift as he backed away from the door and headed for the window on the far side of their cabin.

"Steffen!" he hissed as he tumbled across the room. "It's too late. We've got to get out of here!"

Steffen could not make his feet move, even if he had wanted to. He could only stare in horror as gruff German voices shouted and their flashlights caught first Aron, then Hanne as they ran. And they looked more close together than Steffen had realized, with Hanne only a step or two behind Aron. She reached out to him with a cry, stumbling in the sand, but he only sprinted even more quickly, leaving her behind without a backward glance.

A staccato burst of shots filled the air, flashing from the muzzle of the guard's gun. Hanne fell to her face.

"Halt!" the German yelled over the wild sound of barking and growling. "You can't escape!"

From the back of the cabin Henning called Steffen's name once more, and Steffen turned to see his brother halfway out the window, waving wildly.

"You can't do anything to help her, now, Steffen. Please!"

Steffen wasn't so sure. But he knew he couldn't just run away as dogs were loosed on Hanne, or worse. Even from a distance he could see the stricken look on her face as she rose to her knees in the sand. She glanced first to the ocean, where Aron had disappeared into the darkness, then back at the cottage. And for a moment she looked straight at him, shaking her head and mouthing the word.

"Nej!"

Steffen did the only thing he could imagine doing. He stepped out the front door, hands in the air, shouting at the top of his lungs.

"Hey, there! Over here! Call them off!"

Perhaps it was the unexpected shout or the tone of his voice, but the two large German shepherds did pause for a moment, several yards from where they would have come upon Hanne on the sandy beach. By that time, their two handlers had caught up to them. Steffen kept his arms raised as he marched in their direction, like a fool to his death. But if this was the way he was going to die, Steffen thought, then so be it.

"Leave her alone!" he roared, with a voice that sounded many times bolder than he felt. "I say, leave her alone!"

Now the Germans would have to decide which of the three they would capture first. The girl didn't seem to be running, and by now Aron must have waded through the gentle surf to the waiting small fishing boat. If he had not already been shot in the process, but they would find that out soon enough. Steffen thought he heard the sound of a small boat's engine over all the chaos of barking and shouting. But now he himself approached with his hands in the air. He would make the choice simple for these two soldiers, he thought.

Strangely enough, the two young Germans decided to hold their snarling dogs in check, as one of them circled around to prevent Hanne's escape and the other trained his light directly on Steffen's face. Although it made Steffen blink in pain, he could still clearly make out the ugly snub end of a machine pistol pointed directly at him.

"Face down on the ground!" yelled the soldier. For a moment Steffen considered pretending he didn't understand, and he paused.

"Listen to me," he blurted out, doing his best to keep his voice soft and reassuring. "I'm a pastor. See my collar? A pastor.And look, we have money. Lots of money. Just a little now. But I can get you more. Perhaps that will make it easier to forget this ever happened. See? Buy something nice for your girlfriend. How much do you want? Five hundred kroner? Think of it as a gift."

Unaccustomed to the art of bribery, Steffen started to reach for his pocket, but that was his mistake.

"I said, don't move!" yelled the young soldier, suddenly stepping forward with his gun drawn.

"No, no, see? I'm just getting my wallet. For you.Understand?
Verstehen sie?
A gift." Steffen tried to hold his hands out at his sides, but it was too late, as the soldier used his weapon like a club to the back of Steffen's head.

Steffen did try to duck, but could not avoid the worst of the blow. And as he crumpled to the sand the last thing he heard was Hanne's painful scream.

"Steffen!"

After that he remembered nothing else.

VESTRE PRISON, KØBENHAVN

MONDAY MORNING, 11 OKTOBER 1943

A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes, and is completely dependent

on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the

outside, is not a bad picture of Advent.

—DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

F
or the second time in recent weeks, Steffen awoke with a burning, throbbing pain. Only this time it wasn't from a bicycle accident but from a run-in with the handle of that young German soldier's gun. He groaned as he rolled over in a stiff, unyielding cot, the back of his head throbbing from a goose egg.

"Oh, that's the worst," he moaned, barely able to form the words. His mouth felt as if it had been stuffed with cotton and his arms as if they had been pulled from their sockets.Perhaps he had been tossed around after what had happened the night before.

"Hanne?" he sat up straight, which only made his head pound even more. Stars danced in front of his eyes, until he finally opened them just enough to see where he was. She was the last thing he remembered, though he could not put his finger on the exact time or place.

"Sorry, friend." A soft, low voice greeted him from the other side of a small room, dark like a closet and smelling much worse. "But if she's the one who sold you out, you're probably better off without her."

"Pardon?" Steffen blinked and did his best to focus in the dim light.

"You heard me. Nobody gets in here unless the Gestapo wants to know what you know, and then usually not unless someone else sold you out. But don't worry. It happens to the best of us."

"I don't know anything," whispered Steffen, gingerly testing to see how large the bump on the back of his head really was. "And I'm sure no one did such a thing. It wasn't like that at all."

"Oh, really? Here's a new one. What was it like, then?"

Even as his cellmate chuckled Steffen couldn't help wondering about Margrethe and how well the cleaning woman had kept track of what took place at the church over the past several days. Surely she could have had nothing to do with his capture or Hanne's capture on the beach. No. He had brought it all upon himself.

"It's a long story," he finally mumbled. "I wouldn't want to bore you."

Again the other man laughed.

"In this place? Bored? You're proving to be entertaining."

Steffen wasn't so sure about that. But at length he understood he'd been locked in a windowless cell with a high, rounded ceiling. Its pale yellow paint had been mostly chipped away by previous occupants, who had also carved their initials or defiant statements wherever they could.

On the plus side, a narrow shaft of light filtered in through a sort of mail slot cut into the formidable entry door, though it gave no real clue as to what time it was or how much time had passed. He noticed his watch and his wallet were missing, but that's what surprised him least about all this. What surprised him most was that he still lived and breathed, despite the hammering of his head.

It also took that long for the other man's words to register:

You're better off without her.

No. He clenched his fist. Not now, he wasn't. And he surely was not better off in So what is this place, compared to anywhere else he could think of.

He examined the cell. Two wide wooden benches ran the length of each side, each covered with a threadbare gray blanket that would barely cover a man's shoulders in the draft. A foul-smelling bucket had been stowed at the far end, under the other bench, its purpose all too clear. And on the other bench, a bearded man in a ripped T-shirt and dirty gray trousers sat up against the wall, studying him the way a visitor to the zoo might watch a caged monkey.

"So how do you like your accommodations?" asked his cellmate."Was she worth it?"

Steffen swallowed his pain and straightened up, determined not to answer questions, especially not cheeky ones.Instead he would ask a few questions of his own. He pretended he had not heard.

"How long have I been out?" he asked. "Do you know?"

The other man shrugged. "They brought you in last night."

That wasn't much of an answer, but the man went on.

"You're just in time for breakfast, though. Although I don't think it rates being called 'breakfast.' That's far too dignified a name for the slop they serve us."

"Hmm." Steffen's stomach didn't feel as if it had missed anything, only ached with the vague uncertainty that might come after trauma—such as having been hit head on by a fast-moving freight train. "So what is this place?"

When the man grinned he revealed a gap in his front teeth, even in the shadows. A badge of honor in the Resistance struggle perhaps. Or perhaps he just needed to visit a dentist.

"You really don't know? Either that, or you're a better actor than the last poor fool they put in here with me."

"I'm no actor."

"So you say. But if you want to survive in this place for more than twenty-four hours, you'd better develop a few acting skills. The last fellow never did."

"What do you mean? What happened to him?"

"They took him out and shot him. And that's what's going to happen to you, unless you learn."

"You're not serious."

"You don't think so? Then you're just as foolish as he was."

Nothing seemed to bother the man. Except that now when Steffen had a closer look, he could make out a disturbing collection of cuts and bruises on this man's face, the black eyes and the jagged cuts on his cheeks. One eye, in fact, appeared nearly swollen shut. And still he grinned.

"So why haven't they killed you?" asked Steffen, suddenly feeling bold—or more foolish than he should have been. The other man shrugged.

"Oh, I suppose they'd very much like to. Maybe they just haven't found out the information they're looking for, yet.Not that I have it, you understand."

Steffen shook his head, marveling at the composure—or the insanity—of this man.

"You never told me where we are," Steffen told him.

"Forgive me." The man spread out his arms in a grand, sarcastic gesture. "Welcome to Vestre Prison, located right here in beautiful København and operated by the ever-efficient
Geheime Staatspolizei,
or for you whose German is a little rusty, the Gestapo."

"Thanks for the clarification."

"Lars Hansen." He extended his hand without getting up."Of course, that's not my real name. If I told you my real name I'd have to kill you. And judging by the size of your skinny little neck, that would be a simple task."

Steffen shuddered and blinked back his first reaction to run away from the man, any way possible. Given where he now found himself, however, perhaps he should not have been so surprised at the company.

"Pastor Steffen Petersen." He reached across the narrow aisle that separated the two sleeping benches, barely enough for a man to walk. "That's my real name."

The man nearly crushed his hand.

"So are they actually rounding up pastors these days?" asked Lars.

"No, I, ah . . ." Steffen was about to explain what had happened to him the night before, when a dark thought occurred to him. Who was this man, really? He could just as easily be a German sympathizer, planted here to collect incriminating information from new, unsuspecting prisoners. Couldn't he?

And if that were possible, Steffen decided he should probably not mention his brother Henning's name, for fear of implicating him.

"You . . . what?" asked the other man.

"Actually, I'd rather not say."

"You'd rather not say?" Lars Hansen laughed bitterly before collapsing into a spasm of dry, evil-sounding coughs. "Now there's a bold statement, considering who you are and where you're at."

"I'm sorry," Steffen told him. "Undskyld. It's nothing personal.Perhaps you'd like to talk about something a little more . . . well, you know, safe?"

"You catch on quickly. I don't know you, and you don't know me. You don't tell who you know, and I don't mention my friends, either. We keep it that way. And in a God-forsaken place like this, we both stay alive. For now."

Steffen was about to correct his new cellmate about his use of "God-forsaken" when the man rolled off the bed with surprising speed, grabbing Steffen's collar and pinning him to the bench. Startled, Steffen gasped for breath.

Was this how it would all end?

"But if you're a stikker," he told Steffen, "and they put you here to get information out of a decent, law-abiding citizen like me, then I'd be afraid for my life, if I were you.
Forstår du?"

"Ja, I understand." Steffen gasped like a herring out of water, gripping the other man's wrists and kicking his feet helplessly.Finally Lars Hansen—or whatever his name was—eased up enough for Steffen to catch his breath.

"But I'm not a stikker," Steffen gasped. "I'm not the bad guy here. I'm the pastor at Sankt Stefan's Kirke, believe me."

Lars spit on the floor as he released Steffen with a shove.

"Believe you? Ha! That's how I got here, by believing people who would have sold their own mothers to the Nazis, if there was any profit in it. I don't believe anybody anymore."