The Darkest Canyon

by Roberta Kagan

  And most importantly, I want you to know that I love you. That I believe that I might have been in love with you from the first day that I saw you in the park. And even though we come from different worlds, I am Jew, and you are not, I am certain beyond a doubt that you are my twin soul. You are the woman that God has destined to be my one and only bashert. I will love you as long as I live and probably even after I have left this life. Carry my love in your heart. Let it nourish you and give you strength when you feel weak. And please, Gretchen, know that wherever you are I am always there with you in spirit.

  "If, by some miracle, I should survive, I will find you when this is over. But for now, I must say goodbye.

  "Yours forever, Eli."

  Gretchen looked at the necklace in her hand and felt the tears begin to form behind her eyes. She wished she could have had an opportunity to talk to him before he ran off. She would have begged him to stay. She would have gotten down on her knees and begged him. The tears flowed down her cheeks. Oh Eli.

  The sun had not yet peeked through the darkness. If she hurried, she would still have time to speak to Rebecca. Quickly, she took the candle, lit it, and opened the trapdoor. Then she headed downstairs.

  CHAPTER 3

  Rebecca was sitting cross-legged on the floor covered in blankets and shivering. In one hand she held a piece of paper. In the other, she held Eli’s wedding ring. Tears mixed with dirt from the basement floor ran down her face. She unfolded the paper and began to read.

  "Dearest Rebecca,

  I know I have not been the best husband to you. You certainly deserved better. I am certain that you have been aware of my feelings toward Gretchen. But please know that my love for her started long before I ever met you. You never did anything wrong. It was not your fault that I loved her. You’ve always been the perfect Jewish wife, kind, loving, and understanding. In my way, I love you too; I always will. You have been a dear and precious friend to me. And I would never want to hurt you. It was just that once I met Gretchen I knew in my heart that she was my bashert. It was not her fault. It just happened. I know you and I know that you would never resent Gretchen for this. Your heart is too good and too pure.

  "As I leave here, I pray that all of this with the Nazis will end, and you will find your own bashert. It would give me great joy and peace to know that you were with him.

  "I’ve left you my wedding ring. Please, don’t be sentimental; the memories of our friendship will last forever. A ring is just a material object. Please, sell it and buy food. Take care yourself. Take care of Gretchen too. She tries so hard to be brave. But I know that deep within she is terrified. It was beyond generous of her to take us into her home. She has put herself in great danger. However, I know her too, and I am certain that even once I am gone she will not ask you to leave. In fact she will insist that you stay. Stay with her. Be her true friend. I believe that without me around, the two of you will have enough to survive.

  "And so I’ve said everything that I feel. I will always think of you and always care deeply for you.

  "Love, your best friend, Eli."

  CHAPTER 4

  “Rebecca, it’s me,” Gretchen said as she came down the stairs into the basement

  “He’s gone,” Rebecca said. “Eli is gone. He cut off his payot and left. Look, they’re over there on his bed.”

  “Didn’t you try to convince him to say?” Gretchen asked as she glanced over to see the two side curls Eli had worn at his temples, laying on his mattress.

  “He left while I was asleep. He left me his wedding ring. Told me to sell it. And he left me a note.”

  “He left me one too,” Gretchen said, “and a necklace.”

  “His Star of David?”

  “Yes.”

  Rebecca nodded.

  There was an eerie silence for several minutes. Then Rebecca said, in small voice, “I suppose I should leave.”

  More silence. Then Gretchen said, “No, you must not go. You must stay here.”

  “Eli said you would say that. But let's face the facts: you were hiding us because of your feelings for him. Now that he is no longer here, you don’t have to be in danger.”

  “You knew about my feelings for him?” Gretchen felt her face grow hot.

  “I knew. And it hurt me at first. But then I realized that he and I never shared the love that the two of you shared. He loved you long before he and I met. Our marriage never had a chance. You are his bashert.”

  “He told me that. He used that word.”

  “I’m sure he did.” Rebecca forced a sad smile

  “Do you hate me for spoiling your marriage?”

  “I could never hate you, Gretchen. You saved our lives. A person can’t decide who they are going to love. Love is something that just happens. And it just happened between you and Eli. Someday, I pray that God will send me my own bashert.”

  “Oh, Rebecca, I’m so sorry for any hurt you felt. I’m so sorry and ashamed of the Nazis for doing this to your people. I am German, but believe me these horrible people are not the Germans I know. The Germans I know are probably afraid to speak up. They are as terrified of the Nazis as we are.”

  “I know there still have to be good people here in Germany,” Rebecca agreed. Then she added, “I’m going to leave tonight.”

  “You have no where to go,” Gretchen protested.

  “I’ll be all right.”

  “I insist that you stay. I think your idea of living as an Aryan is a good one. I’ll do my best to get papers for you. I’ll sell the jewelry to buy the papers if need be. After all, if we sell the gold and use the money for food, within a few months we will be starving again. This way, you’ll have a ration card. Then you can pose as my cousin from the country who has come to the city to find work. You’ll move upstairs into my father’s room,” Gretchen said, trying to be as logical as possible while wiping the tears from her cheeks

  “What about when your father returns?”

  “We’ll worry about that when it happens. For now, I think this is a good idea.”

  “If you think so . . .”

  “I do.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Ravensbrück

  Hilde pin curled her hair the night before the interview. The bleached-blonde color had turned brassy. I wish she had been able to make it lighter, a wheat-colored blonde, like Thea’s. Still, at least I am a blonde, she thought as the alarm clock rang much earlier than usual. She jumped out of bed and began getting ready. This is going to be a life-changing day!

  The weather was miserably cold. However, Hilde was confident that her heavy, tan wool coat and nicely detailed, black mohair dress would not only keep her warm but would also impress her interviewers. She would never have been able to afford clothes of this quality. But she’d found a way of acquiring all the things that she wanted and needed. It was wrapped around the government’s strong acceptance of persecution of the Jews, and the idea had come to her quite simply. She’d wanted a handbag when she was younger. It was a beautiful leather bag in the window of a Jewish shop. She’d been admiring it while waiting for a bus. The more she looked at it, the more miserable she was with longing. Then an idea came to her. Hilde could have the handbag, she realized. All she had to do was go into the shop and threaten the shop keeper. Hilde knew that if she went to the authorities and told them that the shopkeeper had tried to rape her, they would take her word over the word of any Jew. So, with confidence, she walked inside. The owner was a kindly, old man with a hump in his back. He asked if he could help her. When Hilde made her threat, rather than fight, he gave her the handbag. And from that day on, she had discovered a way of acquiring anything she wanted in the Jewish sector of town. Using intimidation, she always had the nicest clothes, shoes, handbags, and even food. And that was how she was able to bring special food to share with Gretchen. The things I get from the Jews should be mine anyway. After all, I’m a true Aryan, and all of these things were stolen from the Germans by the devious Jews. Just like Hitler sa
id. So I have every right to take back what is rightfully mine. Those slippery Jews are always stealing from us, just like Thea tried to steal my boyfriend. It’s my responsibility to make sure they don’t get away with this.

  Before she left the house, Hilde rummaged through her mother’s jewelry box and found a strand of fake pearls which she hung around her neck. I should see about getting myself some real pearls. I’ll have to remember to make a trip to see Gottlieb, the kike jeweler, when I get back. No reason to be wearing fakes when I could easily make them give me a strand of real, good quality pearls. It’s a shame, really, that the Gestapo is taking all the Jews away. Once they are all gone, how will I get the things I need? Well, there’s another reason enough to be excited about this job.

  She took a tube of red lipstick out of her handbag and smeared a dab on each cheek. After she rubbed the lipstick into her skin until it was merely a stain, she dabbed it on her lips. After a satisfying glance in the mirror, she donned her wool coat and left the house to take the train heading north to Ravensbrück.

  As the train rattled along the track, Hilde’s thoughts turned to the two men who had most influenced her life, Axel and Hann. She looked out at the snow-covered landscape and thought about Axel, a man who loved her but whose love she could not fully return because she was still obsessed with Hann, a man who didn’t want anything to do with her. And then she thought of Hann, and she burned with that old familiar yearning. Why couldn’t Hann love her the way Axel did? If only he could, then her life would be perfect.

  Axel was the perfect boyfriend, considerate, kind, and affectionate. But he wasn’t handsome or exciting like Hann. And he didn’t have that romantic, heroic way about him, the way Hann did. Hann’s crazy, obsessive love for Thea, a girl who Hilde knew from the Bund, had caused her to hate and eventually destroy Thea. But it had also sparked a deep and unsatisfied need in her. This undying love was what she wanted Hann to feel for her.

  She’d tried everything she could to win him. Oh, how she’d tried to make him love her. Then when she could see no way to come between Thea and Hann, her jealousy swallowed her up, and she invented lies and spread them to destroy Thea’s reputation in Berlin. But it didn’t affect Hann. Even though all of their friends’ parents turned on Thea’s family because of the rumors that Hilde started about Thea being half Jewish, due to her mother’s affair with the Jewish doctor in town, Hann still loved Thea. He would have gone against the whole neighborhood and married her. He told Hilde as much, and it broke her heart to hear it. But as fate had it, Hann never had the chance.

  Thea’s family was ruined by the gossip. Her father walked out on her mother. Then one night, just a few days later, Thea and her mother left Berlin. No one knew where they went. Once they were gone, Hilde had tried again to seduce Hann. But he had no interest in her. She tried to befriend him, tried to be there for him to lean on. Hann was too brokenhearted over Thea to give her the time of day. Finally, Hilde heard that he left Berlin to take a job working on the autobahn in Frankfurt. Still, Hilde didn’t give up. She wrote him several letters, but he never answered, and she knew it was because he had never gotten over Thea.

  Hilde could not reach Hann, but she knew that her dream man was a man as handsome as Hann who would love her as strongly as Hann loved Thea. When she met Axel, even though he was not the love of her life, she felt they were destined to be together. They were both very strong Nazi Party members. He, like her, was from a poor family. His father had served in the Great War, returning from fighting without physical scars, but the memory of death and destruction he had seen on the front lines branded into his soul.

  Axel’s father didn’t sleep well, and he would often awaken screaming and crying in the night. When he was a child, Axel lived in constant fear. He felt like a tender zebra colt hiding just feet away from the jaws of a large hungry lion. Sometimes his father would beat his mother and then apologize while weeping on his knees, on the kitchen floor. Young Axel couldn’t protect his mother or his younger brother. He came to grow a hatred for his father.

  As soon as he was old enough, he ran away from home to find work in the city. He’d gotten a job with the Nazi Party by begging and pledging his devotion to Hitler and the fatherland. And then by working very hard, he set out to prove himself. Slowly, Axel had climbed up the ladder until he landed a position in the SS. And as he and Hilde dated more and grew closer, he shared all the secrets of his past with her.

  It took a cigarette and a full glass of schnapps for Hilde to open up and tell Axel about her own terrible family background. With her face as calm as a poker player but her stomach rumbling in anger and fear, she explained about how her father had left her mother for a younger woman. And how her mother had treated her like dirt. Hilde told him that her mother would tell her she was an ugly child, and she was only deserving of a life of misery. Hilde still did not shed a single tear as she told him of the terrible beatings she endured at her mother’s hand. Axel’s eyes were full of sympathy. He held her hand as she told him that her mother was an alcoholic and a prostitute. He believed every word that Hilde said.

  The more she lied, the more the lies began to take on a life of their own, and Hilde started to believe them. Once she was convinced that her own stories were true, she felt justified in murdering her mother. The murder, she decided, she would keep secret. She had never shared it with anyone. She would not even share it with Axel. As she spoke of her past to him, deep in her gut, Hilde relived every vile moment of her childhood. Some of it was true and some she had invented, but she could no longer remember what was fact and what was made up. Her face and eyes remained emotionless. She stared at Axel as if she were telling the story not of herself but of someone else’s life.

  However, Axel did not judge her. He seemed to understand her, and as he gently squeezed both of her hands in his, he said, “I love you. We are two of a kind. You are the first person I’ve ever met who I feel close to. Marry me, Hilde, and I promise you, you will have a life that is good and filled with love. I will prove to you that your mother was wrong when she said you were undeserving of love. I earn a good living. Together, you and I can build a strong German home filled with happy children, who will enjoy all the fruits of our efforts, as we work on creating our new and perfect Germany.”

  She’d smiled at him. The more he spoke, the more she knew he was right for her. But she thought, if only he were handsome like Hann . . . Hann, tall and strong, with his blond hair, chiseled face, and muscular body. If only . . . Axel was not a handsome man. He was only five feet seven inches, just two inches taller than Hilde, and heavyset like she was. His hair was light brown, almost the same color as hers had been before she’d started bleaching it. And he wore thick glasses. Except for the glasses, they could have been twin brother and sister. Still, she knew he was smitten with her. In her entire life, no man had ever been mad about her, so Hilde buried her feelings for Hann even deeper within her private thoughts and accepted Axel’s proposal. Neither she nor Axel had any family they would choose to invite to a wedding. So it was decided they would wait until they had some substantial savings. Then they would invite a few close friends to see them say their vows in a civil ceremony.

  It was only a short walk from the Ravensbrück train station to Ravensbrück camp. While Hilde had been on the train the temperature had dropped and it was even colder. The streets and sidewalks were covered in ice, making her glad she’d chosen to wear low-heeled, sensible shoes. Pulling her coat tighter around her body, Hilde made her way through the small town toward the outskirts. Before she left home, Axel had explained that the camp was being erected behind what would look to her like a forest. So she was not surprised by the dense trees and foliage surrounding the building.

  When she arrived at the entrance to Ravensbrück, she was surprised to see that there was a wall surrounding it that was topped with barbed wire. This is a prison, she realized, feeling a bit afraid that there might be some dangerous criminals inside. For a moment she was a
ngry with Axel for finding her a job where she might be in danger, and she thought about turning around and going back home. But then she thought I’ve come all this way. I might as well go on the interview. I don’t have to accept the job, if I don’t want to.

  Hilde was vacillating between turning around to go back home and going forward, when a young female guard wearing a gray wool skirt, matching jacket, and a white blouse appeared at the gate. She was covered with a heavy, black cape. Hilde eyed her quickly and thought she looked very fashionable in her tailored uniform.

  “Who are you, and what do you want here?” the woman asked.

  “My name is Hilde Dusel. I am here for an interview for a job.”

  “Hilde Dusel?”

  “Yes, Axel Scholtz arranged an interview for me here for a job.”

  “Wait here,” the female guard said. Then she turned and walked away.

  A cold wind whipped out of the north, slapping Hilde across her face and sending a chill through her entire body. She was suddenly frightened, but she had no idea why. For a second, it felt like the temperature dropped at least ten degrees. Her entire body shivered. Something was odd and intimidating about the woman guard with her smart-looking uniform. Perhaps I am feeling outclassed, Hilde thought. I’ve always felt outclassed. Maybe, I don’t belong here. But she couldn’t leave. Her feet felt as if they’d been glued to the ground, too heavy to lift. And before she could force herself to move, the female guard had returned.

  “Hilde Dusel,” the guard said in a stern voice, “come with me.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Hilde followed the woman. They walked past rows and rows of buildings that looked like long, rectangular houses. And although it was unnervingly cold, there were coatless men in striped uniforms working outside. They were doing construction throughout the entire area. Hilde only had a few moments to observe them before the guard led her through a door into a large building and then down a long corridor.