by Anna Schmidt
“Beth, you have a coat just like that one,” Liesl announced, pointing at Anja.
“I do,” Beth managed. “We must shop at the same place, M–M– Maria.” She stood between her aunt and Anja as she promised that they would not be late and then led the others into the front foyer, where she got her coat and scarf while Josef opened the front door.
“So nice to meet you, Frau Schneider,” Anja said softly, offering Aunt Ilse her hand. Benjamin echoed the gesture, and finally they were outside.
The cold night air had never felt so wonderful. Beth sucked in a deep breath and blew it out. Then she hooked arms with Anja and started down the street. “Come on, Maria. We don’t want to be late,” she said, keeping her voice loud in case her aunt might be listening—and watching—from a window above them.
They walked for three blocks before doubling back down side streets and alleys to reach the courtyard. There they found the children waiting in a shelter of evergreen branches that Josef had constructed for them. They wore warm clothes, and Josef handed Anja a cloth bag filled with food and first-aid supplies. All the while he gave her and Benjamin their instructions.
“When we reach the church, you will take seats on the far right aisle near the confessionals while Beth and I go to the opposite side. In time a woman wearing a red coat will enter the church and kneel next to the pew where you are sitting to cross herself. That’s your signal.”
“I do not understand,” Benjamin said.
“It is the signal you need to know that it’s safe to take the next step. When the woman is seated, take Daniel as if he needs to use the toilet. Someone there will give you directions. The process will be repeated, Anja, this time with a man wearing a navy-blue jacket in the Bavarian style and a red lapel pin. He will kneel next to you and then sit with the woman in red. That’s when you take little Rachel to the toilet. A woman there will give you directions.”
“And then?”
Josef shrugged. “That’s all I’ve been told. It’s too dangerous to give any one person too much information.” He glanced at Beth. “I do know this. You must say your farewells now. When we reach the church, we can’t acknowledge in any way that we are acquainted.”
Realizing that after everything they had been through this might be the last time that Beth would see her friend, she embraced Anja tightly.
“Thank you, Beth,” Anja whispered repeatedly, prolonging the hug as if she could not bear to let go.
“Take this,” Beth said, pressing an envelope in her friend’s hand. She heard Josef suck in a breath. “It’s not my visa if that’s what you’re thinking,” she assured him. “It’s a greeting card. When you are safe, drop it in a mailbox, and that way I will know to stop worrying.”
“I will,” Anja promised.
“We should go,” Josef said, his voice husky.
At the church everything happened exactly as Josef had said it would. He and Beth took places on the far left-hand side of the church where they had a view of Anja and Benjamin and the children but no contact. The concert began, and the historic church swelled with the majesty of Handel’s brilliant Messiah. After twenty minutes or so, Beth caught a glimpse of red and saw a woman start down the aisle near Anja, pause to cross herself and genuflect, and then move on to a seat on the aisle several rows in front of them. Shortly after that, Benjamin stood and took Daniel by the hand as they walked back up the aisle.
A short while later, the process was repeated with the man in blue, and Anja and Rachel left. When Beth would have turned to follow her friend’s departure, Josef took hold of her hand. He held onto it, their fingers intertwined until the concert came to an end.
After the concert Josef introduced her to Willi Graf and one or two other performers.
“I think we have time for a beer,” Willi suggested.
“There is always time for that,” Josef agreed, and the three of them set off for the Gasthaus.
Being with Willi and listening to him and Josef talk about their medical studies, Beth’s thoughts turned to Anja. She wondered where the family was. While she was sipping beer and laughing at something that Willi had said, where was Anja?
As they walked home, Beth placed her gloved hand in the crook of Josef’s arm and rested her cheek against his shoulder. “I don’t understand you at all,” she said sleepily.
He chuckled. “Then we finally have something in common, Beth.” He stopped under the shadow of the bakery’s doorway and pulled her into his arms. “The question I have is whether or not you might be willing to search for even more shared traits?”
“I have to leave Germany in just a few weeks,” she reminded him. “But now there’s a part of me that wishes I could stay.”
“Because of me?”
She laughed. “Yes, all right, that’s part of it.”
“And the rest?”
She tried to read his expression in the shadows surrounding them. Could she trust him? Anja and Benjamin had. Of course, what choice had they had?
“Tell me, Beth. Is it your aunt?”
She shrugged. “I worry about her—about them all. But tonight I was thinking more about Anja and Benjamin. If we truly helped them escape, Josef, perhaps there are others that we could—”
He wrapped his arms more tightly around her. “These are dangerous times, Beth. Why risk your safety when you are in as much peril as anyone else?”
“Not anyone. I might be arrested—deported, but no one is going to shoot me or order me killed.”
He was quiet for several long moments.
“You would stay?”
“Oh, Josef, look what we did for Anja and Benjamin and their children. What if we could do that for others?”
“You should go home, Beth. Home where you can be safe and away from all this.”
“And what if I wish to stay?”
“To help more people like Anja.” It was not a question. His tone— slightly disappointed—told her that he already knew the answer.
“That and because I am confused by my feelings for you.” She was suddenly shy with him. “We should go up,” she said, reluctant to leave the comfort of his embrace.
“I promised Willi that I would meet him after I had seen you safely home. I’ll be back later, and tomorrow…”
“Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow you and I will begin to work through our mutual confusion when it comes to our feelings for each other.” He tightened his hold on her, resting his chin on her head. “Are you sure about this, Beth?”
“I am.”
“Then I will speak with my father.”
“I can’t ask that of you. Let me go to him.”
“No. I will speak with him.”
“If he refuses to extend my visa—even if he agrees—we don’t know how long we will have.”
“Then let’s not waste any of that time,” he murmured, lowering his face to hers as she rose onto her toes to meet his kiss. And when the kiss ended, he did the one thing that Beth had never quite understood about Bavarians who were dating.
He shook her hand before turning to go.
Over the next several days, Beth moved in the haze of the wonder of that shared kiss. Admiration and respect, her head instructed. Love, her heart replied.
Less than a week later as she was still wrestling with the paradox that she—like her father—might have fallen in love with a German in the middle of a war, she received an even greater gift.
“There’s mail for you,” her uncle told her as he collected the letters and bills that had been shoved through the brass slot in the front door. “Odd, that looks so similar to your handwriting,” he commented, handing her the small envelope.
An envelope that she recognized. An envelope that she had been praying to receive ever since she’d had her last glimpse of Anja at the church. She clutched the precious item to her chest and hurried out the door. “I’ll be back,” she called as she ran down the street and caught a departing streetcar just as it was pulling away.
In her excitement she had failed to allow for the fact that Josef might not be alone as she had expected. He was standing at his desk with a man Beth recognized instantly to be his father.
“Ah, Fräulein Bridgewater, my son and I were just speaking of you.”
CHAPTER 8
Beth took her time weaving her way past the lab tables lined with racks of test tubes and the other paraphernalia that Josef and his colleagues used in their research. Herr Buch watched her as he removed his hat and held it lightly in one hand. He wore the same black wool overcoat and leather gloves that he’d worn the night he’d come to deliver her visa. And for one incredible moment, Beth could not seem to put out of her mind the Saturday matinees she and her brothers had watched back in their hometown where the hero could always be easily identified by his white hat.
And the villain always wore black—and in this case a loden-green Bavarian hat with a red-tipped feather in the hatband.
“Apparently you have some good news to share with my son,” Herr Buch said, glancing at the envelope she had all but forgotten she still held clutched in one hand.
“Yes, some friends…” She was suddenly at a loss for words. What to say that would not raise this man’s suspicions?
“A young family that Beth knew—knows—left recently for a holiday, but the way things are today, there is always the concern that they might get delayed or caught in an air raid,” Josef explained. “She was understandably worried.” He took the card from her and read Anja’s short message. Then he placed the card back in its envelope and was about to pass it back to Beth when his father took it from him.
“Postmark is too blurred to read,” he observed as he studied the envelope, turning it over twice as if he expected to find something new. “Where precisely did your friends go on this holiday, Fräulein?”
“They—”
“Bad Pyrmont,” Josef said. “I suggested it as a good place for them to visit. There are still a few Quakers living there, and of course it’s a wonderful place to go for the baths and mineral waters.” He plucked the envelope from his father’s fingers and handed it back to Beth.
“That’s right, and the castle there is—”
“Speaking of travel, Fräulein”—Herr Buch continued placing his hat on Josef’s desk and then tightening the fingers of his gloves as if in preparation for leaving—“I assume your plans are in place?”
To Beth’s surprise, Josef chuckled and stepped closer to her, taking her hand in his. “My father is teasing you, Beth. I have asked if he might extend your visa.”
“That would be…my aunt is still quite…”
“My son has requested this extension for purely selfish reasons, Fräulein. He tells my wife that he has grown quite fond of you. She is a romantic and has asked that I once again intercede on your behalf.”
Beth glanced from Herr Buch to Josef. “I don’t know what to say.”
“It is, of course, your choice, Fräulein. I would only suggest that you consider the consequences of making such a choice. I will do as my wife and son have asked, but if you stay, there will be nothing more I can do for you.” Herr Buch put on his hat. “Josef, your mother expects you to bring this young woman to supper tonight.”
He nodded politely to Beth as he headed for the door. Josef took her hands in his, but she understood that the gesture was more of a warning to say nothing than a sign of his feelings for her. Herr Buch turned when he reached the door and focused a quizzical gaze on Beth. “Of course, it occurs to me that neither Josef nor I have heard your thoughts in this matter. Would you like to stay, or would you prefer to leave at the end of the month as scheduled?”
With everything that had happened since her aunt and uncle had returned, Beth had given little thought to the passing days. Her concern had been for Anja and her family, and once they had left the church, Liesl had claimed all of her attention with her plans for Christmas.
“I…this is all very…”
“Never mind, Fräulein. You can give us all your decision when you come for dinner tonight.”
As soon as the door closed behind Herr Buch, Beth turned to Josef. “You spoke to your mother about extending my visa?”
He released her hands and walked quickly to the door, opening it and glancing up and down the corridor before closing it again. “I thought this was what you wanted.”
“But your mother—how is she involved?”
He ran his hands through his thick hair. “I was….It’s complicated.”
“I have all day.” She suddenly realized that there was a great deal going on with Josef that she knew nothing about.
“You can still leave if that’s what you want.”
This should have been a moment for them to share. A time for joy and celebration that Anja and her family were safe, that Beth would be able to stay, that they could do more for those in need. Instead they were very close to arguing.
“Forgive me, Josef. It’s just that everything is happening so fast, and well, I realize things between you and your father have been…difficult.”
Josef snorted a derisive laugh. “Difficult is putting it mildly.”
“Did you really tell your mother about me?”
This time his smile was genuine. “I did. And on that one topic, my father and I are in complete agreement. My mother is a romantic to her core. Let one word about some woman I find interesting pass between us, and she practically has us married with children on the way before I can finish the sentence.”
“Even an American? Your enemy?”
“She would say that people can be either friends or enemies depending on the political climate of the day. But in her opinion when it comes to romance, politics must not enter into the equation.”
Beth laughed. “I think I will like your mother.”
“You’ll come to dinner then?”
“It did not seem as if your father offered a choice.” She lowered her eyes as she formed the question uppermost in her mind. “Josef, you do understand that my main purpose in wanting to stay is so that perhaps I can do for others what we were able to do for our friends?” She held up the card from Anja. “Anything between us…”
“I understand, and I might have found a way that you can help others without endangering your own safety—at least not to the degree you have before.” He glanced around at the empty room as if someone might have come in without their noticing. Then he slipped a paper out of his briefcase and handed it to her.
“I have seen these,” she admitted as she scanned the words. “I saw one in the park last summer, and another was left on the seat next to me when I took Liesl to the movies several weeks before you came to stay with us.” Her eyes widened in shock. “You wrote this?”
“No. No. But I now know who did. They are medical students like me, and they have asked me to join their cause.” His eyes shone with excitement. “I want to do this, Beth, and I thought you might—”
“How did you find them?”
Josef looked away for a minute. “Willi.”
“Willi Graf?” She tried picturing the mild-mannered, unassuming musician and medical student as a revolutionary and failed. “You are mistaken.”
“Then it must be his twin who introduced me to other members of the group the other night. I am to go there for a meeting tonight—the final one before everyone goes away for the holiday.”
Beth looked at the paper again. The White Rose was the only signature—the only clue to who might be behind such a revolutionary act. She sat down on one of the high stools next to a lab table. “Do you have any idea of the risk you are taking? You could be sent to Dachau or worse,” she whispered. Still she could no
t ignore the way her pulse beat with excitement that just maybe they could do something to make a real difference.
“Beth, this is no different from what you did for Anja. What you want us to do for others.” He refolded the paper and placed it back inside his briefcase in a compartment that was stuffed full of folders, notebooks, and other papers. “What is happening in Germany and throughout Europe is wrong—this war, the actions being taken against ordinary people are so very wrong. How can I make you understand that Germany is my country and I despair for the direction things are taking under this regime of Hitler’s?”
“I do understand that, Josef. I’m just so…” By showing her the paper and telling her about his involvement and Willi’s, Josef had taken an enormous risk. “You further endanger yourself and Willi by even telling me all this.” Her head was spinning so much that she leaned against one of the lab tables and closed her eyes. “I am so afraid for you.”
“Don’t you see? If we can get others to stand against the Reich, then we can save dozens—perhaps hundreds—of lives. I have seen your courage, Beth, your fierce determination to do the right thing even to your own detriment. I do not have your courage, but I think together we could make a difference—a real difference.”
“I have done nothing.”
He picked up the card and waved it in front of her. “You have given Anja and Benjamin and their children back their lives, Beth. You have given them the opportunity to start over, to find safety and a new home. That is not nothing.” He hooked his forefinger under her chin and forced her to meet his impassioned gaze. “Think of it. We could make that kind of difference for others.”
“By writing little treatises like that one?” She jerked her head toward his briefcase.
“Exactly. That may appear to be no more than words on paper to you, but for true German patriots, those words are a signal. They are not alone, and the time has come for them to remain silent no longer in the face of the travesty this regime is making of our nation.”
He was whispering now, glancing furtively at the door whenever there was the sound of voices or footsteps in the corridor. “And we are not alone, Beth. The White Rose has had contact with others in Berlin who were part of another group—larger and more direct in their actions. The government labeled them the ‘Red Orchestra’ because of what they believe to be the group’s communist leanings. Many of them have been arrested. But there are still some….”