All God's Children

by Anna Schmidt

  She remained sitting, staring at the floor. She had not touched the food or the tea. “Beth, we have to get out of here as soon as possible— now change and then eat something.”

  She stared up at him unseeing. “Don’t leave me,” she whispered.

  He knelt next to her. “I won’t leave you, but you must get out of those wet clothes and into something warm and dry, and your aunt would have my head if she thought I had been in the room while you changed.”

  His ploy worked. The mention of her aunt brought the hint of a smile to her lips, and she took a sip of the tea before setting the cup on the table. She peeled off the sodden sweater. “Well go on,” she said. “We wouldn’t want to upset Tante Ilse.”

  Josef ran up the attic stairs. He rummaged through his trunk until he found a sweater vest, which he pulled on over his shirt. Then he put on a wool military jacket over that. They would leave the suitcase—it would only slow them down and draw attention. They were fugitives and needed to spend the night on the run. They might spend the next several days and nights on the street—but better that than in a prison cell.

  When he came downstairs, Beth was dressed and seemed somewhat recovered. She was packing whatever food she could find into a knapsack that the family had carried on picnics in happier times. She wore her coat and hat and the leather gloves he had given her.

  “Where are your mittens?”

  “I prefer these.”

  He took her hands. “These will not keep you warm enough.”

  “Then I will wear my mittens over them,” she informed him and continued searching for food to add to their supply. If he hadn’t been so filled with panic, he might have smiled. This was the Beth he knew— and loved.

  It was clear to Beth that Josef had no better idea than she did of where they should go next. By the time they sneaked away from the apartment the next morning, it was stunning how quickly options they had once taken for granted were no longer available to them. They could not risk traveling by streetcar or buying a train ticket. The train station was teeming with men in uniform—police, storm troopers, Gestapo. Just walking down the street they might be stopped at any moment and asked to show their papers.

  “Perhaps they are not looking for you,” she suggested as they walked as quickly as they dared so as to not attract attention. Josef turned down a street where he had heard of a man willing to create forged documents.

  “We can’t take that risk.”

  The man was not home. “He left,” a neighbor across the hall informed them. “I have pen and paper if you want to leave a note.”

  Josef grinned broadly at the woman and slapped his forehead. “Dumkopf, I got the day wrong,” he told her and then took hold of Beth’s elbow and steered her back down the stairs.

  “Now what?”

  “Lilo,” he said, already walking away.

  Lilo Ramdohr was a friend of the White Rose—especially close to Alex Schmorell—but she had stopped short of becoming fully involved in the group’s activities. If anyone could help them, it would be Lilo. Beth hurried to catch up to Josef. Lilo’s apartment was on the other side of the city. It would be late by the time they got there.

  Lilo opened the door to her apartment as if she had been expecting them. She served them a thin potato-and-red-cabbage soup as she told them what she knew of the events of the last twenty-four hours.

  “We passed by Willi’s place but…”

  “Willi left yesterday to have dinner with his cousins in Pasling. He got home around midnight and was immediately arrested along with his sister.”

  “And Hans and Sophie?”

  “The Gestapo found the typewriter and some of the envelopes and stationery in Hans’s apartment. They are both still being held at Wittelsbacher as far as I’ve been able to learn.”

  Beth did not have to be told that Wittelsbacher Palace was headquarters for the Gestapo. She shuddered. “And Alex?”

  “Everyone is in danger. We have no idea what they have done to our friends or what names they’ve been forced to reveal. They are also looking for Christoph. They found his leaflet in Hans’s pocket. He tried to get rid of it but failed. No one can say for sure what will happen now.”

  “Won’t there be a trial? I mean, they’ve been arrested and presumably charged,” Beth pointed out.

  Lilo gave her a smile that spoke volumes about her opinion of that wishful thinking. “This is not America, Beth. A trial is at best a formality.”

  “But if the students rise up—”

  “As they did when Hans and Sophie were taken into custody? I understand some actually cheered.”

  It was true. Beth had seen that for herself.

  Lilo turned to Josef. “I cannot help you. You might have some chance if you ask for mercy from your father—perhaps he…”

  Josef stood and laid his napkin next to his plate. “Thank you, Lilo. We will find a way,” he said as he held out his hand to Beth. “Take care.”

  Beth understood that Lilo had no choice but to let them go. She could only pray that this dear brave woman would be safe and that someday perhaps when this horrible war was finally over they could all…

  It was better not to think beyond this moment. She and Josef were fugitives and needed to find a place to hide. As they stood outside Lilo’s building buttoning their coats and fumbling in the pockets for gloves and mittens, Josef pulled two envelopes from his pocket.

  “I forgot I had these,” he said. “The professor left you this note.” He handed her the envelope. “He left a message for me as well.”

  “What did yours say?” Beth asked, frustrated at the awkwardness of her mittens as she tried to open the tightly sealed envelope.

  “They got your call. They were sure they could make the train to Lenggries in time. We should join them as soon as possible.” He turned the paper over as if expecting more. “Why there? Why not to Marta’s in Eglofs?”

  “Perhaps they had to change plans,” Beth said as she finally pulled off one mitten and ripped open her envelope. Her message was even more brief than Josef’s had been, and the words written in her uncle’s familiar flowery scrawl struck fresh fear into her heart: Josef has betrayed us.

  Beth’s face had gone pale as she read her uncle’s message, but when Josef reached for the note, she crumpled it and shoved it into her pocket. “He says—that is, it says the same as yours.”

  A military transport truck rumbled by.

  “We should go,” Josef said and reached for her hand as he glanced around for the safest route. “This way,” he said and realized that she had not taken his hand. Indeed when he turned to her, she was backing away from him, her hands stuffed into her coat pockets, her shoulders hunched.

  “I think perhaps we would be safer if we split up. After all, people know we are often together, and Lilo said that Willi had been arrested. If he gives them our names…”

  “Willi would never….” He could see that she was terrified but thought her fear was understandable given everything she’d had to face over the last two days. He took a step toward her. It was only when she turned from him that he realized that what she feared most at this moment was him.

  “Beth,” he said, stretching out his hand to her.

  She ran to board a streetcar just pulling away from the curb. As she reached up to grab onto the door post, the crumpled paper fell from her pocket. Josef ran alongside the car as she made her way toward a window seat, but although he continued to run until he could no longer match the streetcar’s speed, not once did she look at him.

  He stood in the middle of the street, paralyzed by confusion as he watched her disappear. Then he walked back to where he’d seen the note fall and picked it up.

  Josef has betrayed us.

  How could the professor believe such a thing? How could Beth believe such a thing? He loved her. He would gladly sacrifice his life for hers. Suddenly nothing mattered—not his rage at what Hitler was doing to his beloved homeland, not the work of the White Rose,
not even the arrest of his friends and the likelihood that he would be among them soon if he didn’t find a way out of the country.

  The only thing that mattered was that Beth believed that he had deceived her. If it was the last thing he did, he had to find her and convince her that he had not.

  Beth rode the streetcar to the end of its route and found herself in Harlaching, where Josef’s parents lived. Because she had only been in this part of the city that one time, it was definitely unfamiliar territory. As she exited the streetcar, other passengers crowded on—men and women headed home from work or shopping, wanting to be back in the safety of their houses or apartments before dark. Not one of them smiled. Ever since the defeat at Stalingrad, it was as if everyone had suddenly realized that Germany was vulnerable and that history might repeat itself. Those who had lived through the first war were all too aware of what could happen if once again Germany went down in defeat.

  On the other hand, everyone’s preoccupation with the future meant that they paid little attention to her. Dressed as she was, Beth might pass for someone on her way home after a day in the country. She walked quickly along the busy street, barely glancing left or right as if on a mission to reach her destination. Anyone passing her would never guess that she had no idea what that destination might be.

  As she left the shopping district behind and walked down the streets lined with homes very like the one where Josef’s parents lived, twilight settled over the city. Beth’s panic became real. A wind from the north promised a cold night despite the sunny day just passed. Without once breaking stride, she considered every park and garden gate she passed as a possible place she might hide until it got dark and she could move about the city more freely.

  At the same time, she could not get Josef or her uncle’s message out of her mind. How could she not have known? How could it possibly be true? Perhaps it was Uncle Franz who had been fooled. Perhaps somehow he’d been led to believe that Josef had betrayed them when all along…

  She hunched her shoulders and shoved her hands deeper inside her coat pockets, feeling all the while the soft leather of the gloves that Josef had given her clinging to her fingers and hands. It was almost as if Josef himself were touching her, linking his fingers with hers as he so often had these last weeks. She should have given him the opportunity to explain. She should have trusted her love for him—and his for her.

  Oh, Josef, what am I to do?

  Then she saw the church, its spire half-gone and one wall of what had once been the sanctuary reduced to rubble where the bombs had struck. She climbed over piles of brick and stone until she reached what had been the interior. Rows of pews covered in dust faced an altar that sagged badly on one side.

  Beth made her way to a far corner of the church and sat down in one of the pews. She closed her eyes and opened her heart as she settled into the tradition of silent waiting that was the very heart of her faith.

  Eventually she slept, and when she woke just before dawn, she realized that someone had been there, for she was now curled onto the pew and covered with a rough blanket. Panicked, she sat up and felt for her purse. It was still there, worn bandolier-style across her body. She checked to be sure that her papers and the small amount of cash she had were still inside. Her knit hat had come off in the night, and her hair lay in damp clumps around her face and shoulders.

  Kneeling in front of what remained of the altar was an old woman wearing a babushka with her head bowed. Four small candles burned on the steps to the altar. As quietly as possible, Beth folded the blanket and laid it over the back of the pew. Then she removed her mittens and gloves and combed through her hair with her fingers. Shaking with the morning cold, she pulled her hair over one shoulder and braided it, then used a length of string she found on the church floor to tie off the plait. Her hat was sodden and would be useless to keep her warm so she stuffed it into her pocket.

  She slid to the end of the pew and considered her escape route. If she left the way she’d come, she was bound to make a racket climbing back over the rubble. But the other way led deeper into the interior of the church, and who knew what awaited her there?

  “Gut geschlafen, Fräulein?” The woman in the front row was coming toward her. She was short and stocky and dressed in a man’s heavy coat, galoshes that flopped around her ankles, and a wool scarf.

  Beth’s mind raced with possibilities. She glanced around, half expecting to see the familiar brown shirts of a team of storm troopers come to take her away. “I—did you bring the blanket?” she asked even as she edged closer to the aisle that was opposite the path the woman was taking to reach her.

  “I did. My name is Helga, and you are?”

  “Beth—Elizabeth.” Beth had ascertained that there was a corridor just behind her and hoped that it might lead to an exit and escape.

  Helga sighed heavily. “Please do not run from me. I am far too old and far too fat to chase after you.”

  “You are with the…”

  “I am with no one. Not the government. Not the underground. Not the church. I am quite alone in this world, and it would appear you are as well.”

  “I have a family—an uncle and aunt in Eglofs—and if I could just…”

  “You are a long way from Eglofs, my dear.” She pulled something from the bag she carried over one arm and held it out to Beth. “Eat something.”

  Josef had been carrying the knapsack of food when she’d run from him, so it had been several hours since she’d last eaten. As Beth accepted the hard roll that Helga offered her, the woman sighed and pulled a second roll from the bag, plopped down on the nearest pew, and took a bite. “So here we are.”

  “Where is your family, Helga?” Beth was not used to addressing a stranger by her given name, but then the woman had offered no other information.

  “Dead,” she said. “My husband in the last war and now all three sons in Stalingrad. Every morning I light a candle for each of them.”

  “You live nearby?”

  “I live here.” She nodded toward the recesses of the small church that Beth had considered her escape route. “If you want to stay until you can figure out your next move, I don’t mind.”

  “I don’t know this area. How far is the train station from here?”

  Helga laughed. “Not far, but being a fugitive as I suspect you are, that’s the last place you want to go. Don’t you have any friends you can contact?”

  Beth could not have been more surprised when the words that came from her mouth were, “My friends have either been arrested or—like me—are trying to escape.”

  The woman studied her more closely and then nodded. “That business at the university the other day? Those are your friends?”

  Beth thought of denying the woman’s assumption, but how could she? These were indeed her friends. “Ja.”

  Helga clicked her tongue as she shook her head. “Those children are no different than my children,” she murmured more to herself than to Beth. “All of them fighting for what they thought would be best for Germany. You can be sure that the authorities will make an example of them.”

  “They’ll be sent to Dachau?”

  Helga’s laugh was guttural and completely without humor. “They’ll sentence them to death like they did that American woman and her husband. They like to make the most of the flashy stories like this one.”

  Josef.

  Beth was on her feet at once. “I have to go. Thank you so much for your kindness—the blanket, the roll.”

  Helga waved off her gratitude. “Going to get yourself arrested, are you? And what good will that do?”

  “I’m going to try and save a friend. His parents live in this area.” She gave Helga the address and asked for directions.

  “He’s Gestapo—Detlef Buch,” Helga whispered as if to merely state the fact placed them in more danger.

  “I know that, but his son is not. And I have to believe that Josef’s mother will do anything to protect her child and that even his father…�
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  Helga nodded and stood. “Come on,” she said, leading the way through what was left of the church to the street. Once there she gave Beth the directions she needed to reach the Buch home. “I hope this young man’s mother has more luck saving him than I did saving my boys,” she said. “You tell her that I said that enough of our brave boys have died for this senseless war. You tell her….” She broke down and sobbed, but when Beth would have stayed to console her, Helga pushed her away. “Go. You have work to do and not much time to do it.”

  CHAPTER 17

  She was too late.

  When the servant answered the door, she saw the way he hesitated and glanced toward the stairs before greeting her. “Fräulein Bridgewater,” he intoned. “May I help you?”

  His tone and expression were funereal, and Beth felt her heart lurch into a gallop of panic. “Josef?”

  “Who is it, Gustav?” Frau Buch’s voice trembled with fear as she came to the door. “Oh, Beth, my dear, come in. Come in.”

  Beth did not miss the way that Gustav glanced uneasily toward the street as he opened the door just wide enough for her to enter. The aura inside the grand house was so very different than it had been the night she had come for dinner. Even though the late-morning sun streamed through a series of large windows, the feeling was one of solemnity that bordered on grimness. Josef’s mother looked as if she had not slept in days. Her eyes were swollen with the aftermath of crying, and her hair was a wild bird’s nest around her face.

  “Did you hear? Do you know anything? Anything at all that can save him?”

  The woman peered closely at Beth as if expecting to find answers by simply looking into her eyes.