“I don’t know how much more I can take. I don’t dare leave and I can’t bear to be here. If I sit still too long then everything gathers around me, like a flood.”
“You need to just calm down. Think about something else for a few minutes. Talk about anything besides the baby,” Theatrice suggested. “How are things back at the camp?”
“I can’t talk about that right now.”
“Try. Just take a breath and pretend that none of this is happening. Giselle is sleeping peacefully. There is no baby yet. There, that’s right. Just breathe. Now, tell me about the camp.”
Blaz sighed. “The camp.” There was a long pause and Cora had to shift more than once to get comfortable as she eavesdropped. “Well, you’re not missing anything there. We get new shipments all the time, same as always, and we have to make room. I thought Dieter was bad, but his replacement, Herold? The man is absolutely barbaric. He has no concept of what being in the SS even means. It’s not about honor to him. It’s just a license to kill. And he does, constantly. You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him when there wasn’t blood on his hands.”
“Well, we all handle war differently . . .”
“No, no with him it isn’t about the war. He takes pleasure in the killing.”
“You can’t know that,” Theatrice argued. “Who knows what’s going through his mind.”
“Why are you defending him?”
“I’m not defending him. I’m just surprised you’re being so quick to judge.”
“I don’t judge what he does, just the enthusiasm with which he does it. He shouldn’t enjoy it.” Blaz sighed again, a long shuddering sigh. “What if it was the boy? Hmm? What if it was my son he was taking such pleasure in butchering?”
“Butchering?” Theatrice voice went up. “I thought you wanted me to get rid of him. Those were your exact words. ‘Get rid of it.’ He was just another undesirable.”
“You don’t understand. I was in shock. I didn’t know what I was saying.”
“So tell me now. What are you saying? Because I told you to think, not abandon your beliefs altogether.”
“What do you want me to do, Theatrice? Kill him, don’t kill him? Seems like whatever I say you say the opposite.”
“I just didn’t want you to act out of anger, that’s all. I wanted you to have time to control yourself and handle it with dignity. That’s what makes you better than Dieter and Herold and all the rest like them. You cleanse. You don’t butcher.”
“But it’s still sad. Don’t you understand? My heart is broken every day. Those prisoners are terrified and I see it. I see them clinging to their children. I see them pushing themselves to every limit just to stay alive one more day, one more minute. I see them calling out to a God who doesn’t hear them. And I never noticed it before. I mean, I did, but I didn’t let noticing weaken me. There was always a purpose. And now that purpose is lying in a crib and he’s . . . I had a friend when I was younger, British. I saw him last year. He told me that we were creating a universe without God in it. Maybe he’s right.”
“Maybe that’s how it’s done,” Theatrice offered. “Changing the world. We have to separate ourselves from what we know. Separate ourselves from feeling. We do things beyond the universe to make things better in it.”
“No, no not beyond. Beneath.”
They were silent for a few moments and Theatrice offered to make tea. Blaz must have refused, though Cora didn’t hear him say it.
“What can I do to help you?” Theatrice was pressing.
“You already are,” Blaz interrupted. “More than what you are . . . physically doing. I’m sorry. I’m glad you’re here. I need someone to talk to.”
“Do you know what you’re going to do?” She asked.
“No. I just wish I could know what Giselle would want me to. All these years together and I don’t have the answer. I should have the answer.”
“Why don’t you just ask her when she wakes up?”
“I don’t know how long that’s going to take. What if someone finds out? What if someone sees him? Even if we keep everyone away until then how am I supposed to tell my wife that the child she’s been trying to have for years now is going to his grave? How could I even begin to explain it to her? He would be on the list. She wouldn’t be able to handle it. I can’t handle it. I’m supposed to be stronger than this. I’m damned whatever I do.”
“You mustn’t think like that, Blaz. Anyone would have difficulty with this, I think.”
“Even the Fuhrer?” Blaz asked.
“Well, maybe not. He operates with absolutes. But that’s why the Fuhrer is the Further. We can’t all be that strong.”
“Isn’t that what all this is for; destroying weakness? I can’t even keep myself strong. Weakness is infecting me.”
“What if your wife wants to keep him? Won’t that make her weak?”
“I don’t know. No. It’s different for women. Giselle, Cora, even you. You are all blessed to be . . . tender. The world does not expect from you what it expects from me.”
“I hardly consider myself weak, Blaz. Remember, I too am a member of the SS.”
“You are stronger than most women, I agree. But you allowed yourself to be seduced by an officer, allowed him to beat you and kill your unborn child, and when you finally escaped, it was only by my help. Your mind, your heart and, yes, your body are all subject to the will of men.”
There may have been a slap, but it was hard for Cora to tell. A moment later, a door slammed. Cora stayed hunched against the wall a moment longer, just in case Theatrice came back. But she was so tired she finally slumped down onto her pillow and fell asleep.
When she woke it was still dark. She opened the door to the hall, a trespasser in her own home. Her mother had still not awakened and her father had disappeared. Perhaps he’d gone walking. He walked a lot when he was upset. As Cora crossed to the nursery she could hear the sounds of Theatrice crying in her room. She opened the nursery door carefully, unsure of what she might find. What could be so bad that their father would even consider hurting him? The baby was sleeping so peacefully. A sudden whisper of cloth made Cora suspect he must be dreaming. She half crouched as she moved from the door to the side of the crib and peered in, her chin hooking over the bar as she stood beside the rail. What was wrong with him, she wondered. He didn’t look sick.
She wondered what could cause so much upset over something so small. She’d never seen a baby up so close. Curiously, she examined his nose, his ears, the fine hair on his head. Opening the blanket she began her inspection of his shoulders and chest.
His arm. Something was wrong with his arm. So that was what Theatrice had meant. But why was her father so upset, so afraid? Didn’t his weak arm make him pitiable, not dangerous? Her baby brother was the first thing she had ever seen her father conflicted about. He was always so certain. Even when he did not like what he did, he did it all the same, his perfect faith in the Reich and in his duty guiding him through it all. She heard him say things; saw the shadow in his eyes darken a little every time he came home. Of course, she didn’t understand it all, hardly any of it actually, but she knew it affected him. Especially the day that he grabbed her, shouted his guilty confessions in her face. And then, of course, there was what she had heard tonight.
The baby stirred again and opened his eyes a little. Cora started to back away from the crib, but he didn’t seem to see her, he was still half asleep. When he closed his eyes again she worried he would wake up soon. She had expected everyone to surround the baby, make him the center of their attention. But she had yet to see anyone even hold him. He was all alone, the little prince. Cora thought she should be happier, grateful that things had turned out the way they did. But how was she supposed to hate him this way? He wasn’t even crying. Was he too weak to cry? Was there something else wrong with him besides his arm? She wouldn’t mention it to anyone. What if they hated him even more? Cora had always been so terrified of being weak and now a baby h
ad come into their lives that truly was. But what if the baby wasn’t crying for a reason? What if he knew something? What if somewhere in that tiny, mangled body was a soul trying to escape itself? Cora remembered the day she had been forced to lay down, to submit to a stranger’s ugly exploration. She hadn’t cried. She had looked away, just stared through the canopy of trees into an indifferent sky and waited for anything else to happen. She had been so little. If that were to happen now, Cora thought, she would cry out. She would scream, fight not to be alive but to live, to exist free of such evil. But he might have killed her, the man in the woods. He might have broken the leg he so carefully caressed, smothered the mouth he so hastily kissed. And this baby, Cora’s brother. If he cried out, fought to live, to be heard and known, what would become of him? The little girl that had walked back to the car, sat on the seat between her mother and father wishing she had been protected . . . she needed someone, anyone to look after her. But she had been alone. She’d been alone in the woods, alone in her room when she cracked her jaw, alone in her shame when her mother lay dying. But the baby didn’t need to be alone. He had her, his sister, his protector. She would take care of him.
An idea struck her. She tiptoed to her bedroom and back. In her arms she carried her bear. His back was still wet from her tears and she tried to dry him on the skirt of her dress. The green blanket was on the rocking chair. No one had swaddled the baby in it. She took her bear in her arms and held him to her chest, cuddling him as she continued to stare at the blanket. It didn’t bother her anymore that she didn’t get a blanket like that. She had two arms. Her father disapproved of her, but she couldn’t imagine him being so angry by her birth. Her faults, however numerous, were not enough to put her on any list. That was what her father had said when he talked to Theatrice. “He will be on the list.” “And I am damned whatever I do.”
Somehow, even without entirely understanding what her father had said, these words had made her afraid. It was how she knew her father was crumbling, knew that her baby brother had given her father a rattling he could not recover from.
Her hand swept over the blanket and grasped its heavy corner. She picked it up and wrapped it around her bear. She very quietly hummed Zelda’s tune. The baby looked cold. He was still naked with only a thin blanket to warm him. She unwrapped her bear, laying the green blanket over her brother instead and settling the bear in the corner of the crib. She continued to hum the lullaby as she backed out of the room and slowly closed the door. In the hall, she could hear Theatrice getting up. Cora crept back to her own room, wondering if Theatrice would ever check on the baby.
In her own room she finally dressed in her night clothes and climbed into bed and stared at the ceiling. She hoped when her mother woke she would want to keep the baby. He started to whimper and then the cry grew into a wail. It was louder than Cora would have guessed from someone so tiny. Somewhere a door opened and moments later the crying stopped. Cora hoped Theatrice was picking up the baby and thinking better of her earlier advice. The image calmed her a little. The two people she hated the most suddenly didn’t seem so bad. As the minutes ticked away, Cora felt herself slipping into night, her body weightless against the mattress, her ceiling a starry sky swirling in infinity.
CHAPTER 15
December 1912
Young Blaz
Blaz had to hop to keep up with his father. His little legs tried to match the rhythm as they trudged through ankle deep snow. It wasn’t that shallow for Blaz who sank up to his knees but it was ankle deep to the giant moving ahead of him in the night. Blaz sometimes imagined his father was a real giant, like one from his storybooks. As they made their way through the forest he pictured tiny creatures, fairies and elves maybe, running for their lives as the monster plowed through their serene villages. The massive shoulders loomed above him, hunched high to protect the burly neck where black stray hairs dipped beneath a wool cap.
It was Christmas Eve, what should have been a time to celebrate, but Blaz’ father had little to be grateful for and even less to take pride in as relatives arrived throughout the week. He was out of work and could barely feed his family on the odd jobs he took. One day it was selling shoelaces, another it was repairing fences at Schroeder’s farm. Even the Schroeder’s were poor and to be hired by a poor man meant being poorer still. What little money he earned during the days leading up to Christmas should have been spent on paying the rent. But the family couldn’t know what a failure he was. Whatever other faults they found with him he could live with but being a poor provider was not one of them. So he took the boy and went to town to buy an ill advised holiday feast. They had to walk further than usual. Blaz’ father was hoping to find an unfamiliar store where an unsuspecting clerk might allow him some credit. Everyone they knew had already cut them off.
Blaz followed his father past the usual trails they used and finally emerged from the forest in a part of town he’d never been to before. There was a large park, empty but for the occasional snow man or loose dog. The street on the other side of the park, however, was busy with foot traffic. Families were shopping for last minute gifts and carolers fought to be heard above the crowd. They passed shops full of toys and books. Some sold shoes, hats or dresses. There were stores with bottles of liquor lined in the window and sweet shops displaying Bavarian pastries. Patrons were just leaving a bakery as Blaz and his father walked in front of it. The lovely yeast aroma hugged Blaz for a moment before the door closed. Fresh rolls had become a thing of the past for Blaz and his family. But maybe tonight would be different. Maybe tonight they would have more than rolls, but butter and sausage. There might be ham hock with fried potatoes and sauerkraut, roulade full of bacon and onions, desserts of marzipan and pastries topped with chocolate. Blaz mouth was watering when, finally, his father stopped and entered a place called Trawitz.
Shops always intrigued Blaz. His father often brought him to help carry groceries and supplies. Blaz was never allowed to touch anything or make requests, but there was no rule prohibiting him from looking. He marveled at the even rows of canned goods, the pyramids of fruit and vegetables and the shopkeepers who would disappear every now and again behind a curtain. Blaz would have given just about anything to see what was back there. He imagined little men in hats and vests running about the shelves and labeling the tins and bags that sat like books on a shelf all along the walls. They would call to each with tinkling voices, “Flour! Sugar! Beans!”
But more than everything else Blaz loved the candy counter. Row upon row of identical glass jars with shining silver lids beckoned him with their cheerful inhabitants. The colors beamed at him; red and black licorice, green pinwheels, golden butterscotch, chocolate sticks, gum drops and some Blaz didn’t even know what they were. And on the far end, closest to where his father was negotiating with the grocer, Blaz’ favorite, the lemon drops. Someone else must have liked them, too, someone who had forgotten to screw the lid back on the jar.
Blaz looked up at his father. He was busy talking, wasn’t even paying attention.
“Just until the new year,” his father was saying.
Maybe Blaz could take just one. One lemon drop would surely never be missed. He hadn’t had one in so long.
“Please, sir, it’s Christmas,” his father pleaded.
Yes, Blaz thought. It was Christmas, after all. He’d never stolen anything before. Was it really stealing anyway? He could get a whole bagful for a mere pfennig. Just one was practically worthless.
Blaz reached up slowly, never taking his eyes from his father or the owner shaking his head. His little hand found the smooth lip of the jar and slid carefully inside. He touched the drops, felt the rough sugar coating on his fingertips and snatched.
But the drops were stuck together. A summer spent in neglect had melted the sugar and the bitter cold that followed froze them all together. But Blaz couldn’t give up now. He pinched and pulled, trying desperately to free just one. They hadn’t noticed him yet. It wasn’t too late.
/> Suddenly, the whole lot cracked and broke from the bottom of the jar. The hulk of candy still in Blaz hand, he tried to jerk away but it was too late. The men had already turned at the sound. He couldn’t think, he tried to make his hand release the candy but it would not obey. In his effort to pull his hand free, the jar shattered against the one next to it and then the whole shelf came crashing around him. One by one, the glass jars shattered, their colorful contents dashed against the hard floor. Blaz did not wait to see his father’s face. He ran from the store, out into the snowy street with the lemon drops still in his hand.
There was no where to run. He didn’t know anyone here. Looking around him he saw only chaos and noise. But there was an alley, dark and separate from everything. Around the corner and behind a noisy, smoke ridden pub, Blaz crouched behind an empty barrel. His heart fluttered fiercely, trying to break free of his ribcage. He was as good as dead, he thought. He had been fine, hadn’t been yelled at once on the way to town and one stupid mistake had just changed everything. No one else seemed to notice. The people kept shopping, carolers kept singing and there were children rolling parts for a snowman. It was still a happy Christmas Eve for all of them. Across the street, a horse nickered and shook its massive body jingling the decorative silver bells on its harness. Blaz wished he could ride away on the horse, away from the giant that was surely coming for him.
Snow was falling in delicate clumps landing like little snowflake families on the street and roughly torn apart as the holiday crowd stomped around thronging the shops. Blaz pinched the coat of his collar tighter around his neck. Half the buttons were missing, but his mother didn’t seem to know how to fix broken things. He stuck his thumb and forefinger through the opposite holes and tried to push them together. His father came into view, steam trailing behind him as he searched for his hiding son. He wouldn’t call out for him, Blaz knew. He wouldn’t let anyone know that he had lost something.
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