All God's Children

by Anna Schmidt

She longed for the gathering of her Quaker family or at least her aunt and uncle so that they could pray silently until some discernment of the circumstances made God’s will clear for them all. Waiting was their way. Certainly when she had decided to hand over her papers to Siggy, she could have done with the counsel of others. “We do not act alone, Elizabeth,” Uncle Franz had gently chided her.

  But this woman was in grave danger, and there was no time to seek the counsel of others—no time for waiting. For the second time she was going to have to make a choice without the traditional regimen of taking the matter to an appointed clearness committee or even her closest family members. Quakers simply did not make such momentous decisions as she was now facing on their own. The gathering of the community to come to consensus on matters of such importance was central to their faith, yet she felt that she was being led to help this woman and her children.

  She squeezed her eyes closed and prayed for guidance. Show me the way. She had done no such praying when she’d handed over her visa to Siggy, and look where that had gotten her. She certainly could not afford to make a mistake here—a choice that not only might endanger this woman but could also place Beth and the rest of her family in further jeopardy because of her rash actions.

  Please! she pleaded silently. The soldiers are almost here, and I don’t know what to do.

  The woman gripped Beth’s arm and motioned toward a fence at the back of the park. Apparently she was trying to say that she and the children would scale that enclosure and escape. Beth found herself focused on the woman’s ugly felt star, and in that instant she knew she had been given her answer.

  “Schnell,” she whispered, urging them to hurry as she herded the woman and her children back toward the corner bench. “Take off your coat and turn it inside out.” She knelt and began helping the oldest child—a boy with wide, dark eyes—to do the same. “Put this around you and the baby,” she instructed, handing the woman her scarf and thanking God that her mother had made it wide enough to serve as more of a shawl. “Hurry. They’re almost here.”

  She could hear the two soldiers talking as they slowly made their way up the block, pausing here and there to peer into a darkened alley or doorway. As soon as the woman and her children were changed, Beth motioned for them to sit on the bench.

  “If they come in,” she instructed in German, “we were here earlier and I dropped my key.” She took the key from her pocket and placed it on the ground under a pile of snow-covered leaves. “We realized it when we reached home and came back to search for it. What is your name?”

  “Anja Steinberg.” The woman pulled the youngest child closer to her breast, covering the child with the shawl as her son huddled against her side.

  “You are German?”

  “Danish. My husband is German.”

  Beth perched on the edge of the bench and waited. Each step that brought the possibility of discovery closer seemed to suck the breath from her until she thought she might faint.

  The soldiers were now at the gate, but they barely paused before walking on without stopping. The baby stirred and whimpered. The leather heels clicking on the wet walkway came to a halt, and then Beth heard them moving back toward the park.

  “Ach, here it is,” she said in her normal voice as she rummaged through the leaves and produced the key just as the soldiers came through the gate and flashed a light over the scene. “It must have fallen out of my pocket when we were—”

  “Halt!”

  Beth heard the boy swallow a whimper and was surprised that her first thought was, What kind of world have we made where a child of five or six knows better than to show his fear?

  She positioned herself in front of Anja and the children as the soldiers entered the park and moved toward them. “I know this one,” she heard one say to his partner. “Professor—”

  “Werner?” she ventured as she squinted up at one of the soldiers. “Is that you?”

  Werner Ostmeir was the son of her uncle’s downstairs neighbor. He’d just turned eighteen when Beth had first come to Munich. Beth had seen him march off to war side by side with his dearest friend—a boy her age who had been killed in battle. She had mourned that young man’s passing and then rejoiced with Werner’s family at his safe return. Just before the United States entered the war, she and the rest of the family had attended Werner’s wedding.

  “Fräulein,” Werner replied shyly. Then he straightened to his full height, some two inches shorter than Beth, and glanced at the woman and children. “Who is this?”

  God continued to shower blessings on the situation as the light snowfall escalated into a near blizzard. Beth seized the opportunity to pick up the boy, and as the soldiers bent their heads against the driving snow, she started past them. “A cousin visiting from Denmark. I dropped our house key when we brought the children here to play earlier.” She continued to edge toward the gate, herding Anja along with her. “Perhaps your parents mentioned that my uncle and aunt are away and—Oh my, these children are going to catch their death. It was good to see you, Werner,” she called over her shoulder. She hoisted the boy higher on her hip and wrapped her free arm around Anja’s shoulders as she hurried away.

  As they passed through the gate, she risked a look back and was relieved to see that the two men had taken refuge under an arbor. Apparently staying dry took precedence over questioning her and Anja. She gave a quick wave and hurried down the street and tried not to think about how she might explain this “cousin from Denmark” should Werner share that news with his parents.

  CHAPTER 5

  Josef walked with the long, determined strides of a man on a mission. Fortunately the accumulated snow meant that the streets were fairly deserted and that his purposeful step raised no suspicions. He hurried on, anxious to bring Beth his news.

  With the exception of one or two times when the two of them had been alone in the kitchen or sitting room, she had mostly avoided him. One evening he had returned to the apartment from a shift at the hospital to find the professor’s study filled with people—people who the professor introduced to him as colleagues and former students. Josef had not been fooled. Students and faculty members they might be, but more to the point, these were people who were at the very least outcasts under the new regime and at the very most people with whom so-called good Germans no longer associated.

  Still he had accepted Franz’s invitation to join in listening to the poetry reading in progress and to stay for the discussion that followed. Beth acted as hostess in the absence of her aunt, who Josef later learned stayed in their bedroom whenever her husband insisted on hosting such a gathering.

  Once the reading ended, the discussion deteriorated into stilted small talk. Josef was well aware that it was his presence in the room that had caused everyone to censor themselves. Beth was perched on the arm of her uncle’s chair, sipping her tea.

  “I have a concern,” she said, as if the discussion of the poet’s work had continued at the lively pace that Josef suspected was normal for the gathering. During the weeks he’d spent living in the house, Josef had learned that this was the Quaker way of introducing a troubling topic.

  The professor cleared his throat, perhaps intending to warn her, but she continued speaking. The other guests gave her their full attention, expecting no doubt some commentary on the work of the poet.

  “Is not the poet saying that all are created equal?”

  Around the room guests offered nods and murmurs of agreement in response to her interpretation of the poet’s words.

  “Yet,” she continued, “there are entire groups of people that are being singled out for harassment and open persecution—not just here in Germany but around the world.”

  “Even in almighty America?” another member of the group challenged, glancing at Josef as if to make it clear that he did not agree with Beth.

  “Yes. Even there. My own family has written to me of the snubs of neighbors and the suspicions of local authorities simply because my mother i
s of German birth. And that bit of news was allowed to escape the black marking pen of the censor.”

  “Is that why you have not returned to America?” the young man asked.

  “Why would she?” The speaker was a woman who was looking not at the young man but directly at Josef. “Things are surely so much better here.”

  A few people laughed, while others looked away. Franz struggled to find words to defuse the potentially volatile thread of conversation. “My niece has a point. The role of government is to serve all its peoples equally. Especially in those nations founded on the Judeo-Christian principles—”

  “In any civilized society,” Josef interrupted as he crossed the room to stand next to the professor’s chair with the intention of showing his support for Beth and the professor. Beth had glanced up at him, and her smile was so tentative and uncertain that it had taken his breath away. The truth was that he was wracking his brain to come up with some way he might change the direction of the conversation. Regardless of the connections among those gathered, no one could be certain of another person’s loyalties. The challenging student might well be working for the government to ferret out those who would dare dispute the Reich’s absolute power.

  “I wonder if I might share a poem a friend of mine has written. It’s titled ‘On a River Bank’,” Josef continued. “Although my friend’s work has not been published, I believe that it has some similarities to the work read earlier.” To his relief, most of those in attendance nodded and sat back to listen to his recitation.

  It was later that same evening that Josef had come down from his room in the attic to retrieve a book he’d left behind. The others had all left, but Beth was curled into the depth of one chair while Franz sat slumped in the other, his legs outstretched toward the fire.

  “But child, you go too far,” the professor was saying. “How can you not appreciate that as someone with no proper identification papers— as an American…”

  “I know. I am so sorry, Uncle,” she said softly. “Sometimes I don’t know what gets into me. It’s as if—”

  She had looked up then and seen Josef standing in the doorway.

  “I left my book,” Josef had said, indicating a table just inside the room even as the incriminating phrase—someone with no proper identification papers—echoed in his brain. She had no papers? She was an American living in the midst of her country’s enemy. She was in grave danger for that reason alone, and without the proper documents…

  “Come in, Josef,” Franz said, his voice weary and defeated. “How much did you hear?”

  Josef pulled a third chair up to the fireplace. “Enough,” he admitted.

  “Can you help?” Franz asked.

  Josef looked at Beth. “I will try,” he promised her.

  “Danke,” Franz said as he turned his attention back to the fire.

  Beth stood then. “You must not involve yourself in trouble that I alone am responsible for creating.”

  He had shrugged. “People lose papers from time to time— sometimes they are stolen, and other times simply misplaced.”

  He saw her exchange a look with her uncle and understood that he had not yet heard the true story. Once Beth had said her goodnights and left the room, Josef had turned to Franz. “If I am to help her, I have to know the whole story.”

  Franz had indicated that Josef should take the chair that Beth had vacated. The two men had talked long into the night, and by the time Josef returned to his room, dawn was breaking.

  Later he lay on the single bed and stared at the rafters of the attic’s ceiling. He was attracted to Beth Bridgewater in a way that might have been possible for them under other circumstances. But a German officer and an American who was stranded in Munich? That was inviting problems for each of them.

  After that it was Josef who had avoided her. He would stay late in the research laboratory or beg off joining the others when he arrived home. The truth was that he was so smitten with the woman that he could not bear to be in the same room with her without blurting out his true feelings. But in the days and weeks that had passed since that evening, he had not forgotten his promise to the professor, and to that end he had finally gone to the extraordinary lengths of asking his father for help.

  Of course he had not told his father the real story but instead had simply spoken of the papers being misplaced. But his father had seen through his efforts at nonchalance. “This young woman must be someone quite special if she has driven you to come to me,” he had said. “I would like to meet her.”

  “Perhaps one day that could be arranged.”

  “It will be arranged,” his father replied, “or there will be no replacement of the woman’s documents.”

  The conversation was so very typical of the conversations Josef had shared with his father from the time he was a young boy. His father always established the ground rules.

  And so tonight he had a surprise for her, a gift—the precious papers would be delivered to the apartment within the hour. He was excited to be able to bring her such good news, but he did so with some regret. He admired her courage a great deal, but the truth was that his feelings for her had moved well beyond simple respect. Any woman who could inspire him to ask his father for a favor was a woman to be reckoned with.

  An inch or more of snow had covered the streets and sidewalks by the time Beth led Anja and the children to the rear entrance of the apartment building. She checked carefully to be sure no other tenants were around, then set the boy down as she used her key to open the door. But instead of following Beth into the dark hallway, Anja shifted the smaller child in her arms to remove the shawl.

  “Thank you,” she said in perfect English as she handed Beth the garment.

  Beth smiled. As good as her German was, there was something in her accent that immediately identified her as a foreigner. “There’s no one home,” Beth assured her, leaving the door ajar as she stepped back into the small courtyard and whispered, “Come upstairs with me. We can dry your clothes and give the children something to eat and—”

  “No. You have done enough. Thank you.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “I…” Anja’s voice broke. “We will be fine.”

  Beth glanced toward the rows of windows above her. With the requirement for blackout curtains to be secured before any lamps were lit, it was difficult to know if their neighbors were at home. To reach her uncle’s apartment would require leading Anja and the children through the building and up past two other apartments on the second and third floors to the apartment on the fourth—the apartment with the extra attic room. She leaned her head back to look all the way up to the small attic window. Of course there was no way of knowing if Josef had come back.

  “At least step into the hallway here out of the snow,” she urged. “No one will come this way at this hour of the night. You can wait here while I get you some bread—a little cheese.” Beth wrapped her arm around Anja’s thin shoulders and guided her inside. The woman was shivering, whether from the weather or fear or sheer exhaustion, Beth could not say. Probably all three.

  Once they were all safely inside, Beth secured the door and checked to be sure the blackout curtain was properly in place. Then she switched on the light—a single wall sconce that did a better job of casting shadows than lighting the way.

  The boy sneezed.

  “Oh, Frau Steinberg, we really must get him and the baby some dry clothes. If you’ll come upstairs with me—just for a little while, we can at least hang their coats by the kitchen stove and…” Beth told herself that what she was offering was simply a part of what God had already led her to do in rescuing this woman and the children.

  To her relief, Anja nodded, but it was not a gesture of acceptance. Rather it was an act of surrender. The woman looked utterly defeated.

  “Good,” Beth said with forced cheerfulness.

  The trip from the back entrance to her uncle’s fourth-floor apartment was blessedly uneventful. The younger child w
as asleep in her mother’s arms, and the boy followed Beth’s whispered instructions to be “as quiet as a mouse” with a sigh of resignation that told her this was not the first time he’d had to play this adult version of the game of hide-and-seek.

  Once they were inside the apartment, Beth led the way to the kitchen. “You get those wet outer clothes off them and your own coat as well. I’ll start some water to warm. We can mix powdered milk for the children and some tea for you and me.”

  Within minutes the air was permeated with the scent of damp wool. Beth placed half a loaf of bread and a carving knife on the table, then grated cheese and stirred up the last of the powdered eggs. “I have an extra coat you can have,” she said, thinking aloud. “Forgive me for saying so, but you are fair enough to pass for Aryan. Perhaps if we—”

  “I am Aryan,” Anja replied as she carved a paper-thin slice of the loaf of bread and handed it to her son.

  “Then why…?” Beth could not stop herself from glancing toward the yellow star sewn to Anja’s coat.

  “My husband is Jewish. I was raised in the faith of the Freunde.”

  “Me too,” Beth said. “American. Society of Friends.” The teakettle whistled, and Beth reached for it after pouring the egg mixture into the hot skillet. “Wait a minute. Your husband and the children would be protected by your status as Aryan.”

  Anja gave Beth a wry smile. “That protection was removed when I stood with my husband in a protest against the government.”

  “Where is your husband now?” Beth asked and noticed the boy’s eyes fix on his mother’s face with interest.

  “This afternoon he was taken for questioning.”

  “But not you?”

  “I was returning home with the children when we saw the—saw him leave.” Her eyes begged Beth not to ask more.

  “Here we are,” Beth said with a heartiness she didn’t feel as she placed a plate of eggs and a mug of thin, watery milk in front of the boy. “And because you have been so very brave and good, I have a special treat for you.”