by Anna Schmidt
“The farmer will contact the local authorities,” he said as he worked. “We need to get away from here as soon as you can walk,” he told Beth.
“I can walk now,” she replied. “Anja, go find something I can use as a crutch.” She grimaced as Josef probed the wound, hoping to work the bullet loose and remove it.
Anja headed back into the forest. “The woman gave us a map and a compass,” Beth said, nodding toward the knapsack. “We’re only fifty something—kilometers I expect she meant to say—from the sea, Josef. We can do this.”
“When you can travel,” Josef said as he wrapped the strips of fabric around her leg. “We’ll give Anja the map and compass and send her on.”
He couldn’t look at her because he knew she would see in his face the real story. The likelihood was that they would be caught, and if they sent Anja ahead at least one of them might make it to freedom.
But when she touched his cheek, he raised his face to hers. “It’s all right, Josef,” she said. “We may fail, but we must try.”
He had never loved her more than he did in that moment, for he saw in her eyes that she fully understood the ramifications of what had just happened. “We will go as far as we can, and if…”
He shushed her by placing his finger against her lips. “Rest now.” He retrieved the bottle of cider from the knapsack and gave it to her. “Drink.”
She took a long swallow, and her eyes widened in shock. “It’s fermented,” she managed to say as she choked down the liquid.
Josef grinned. “Good. It will help you sleep. Now close your eyes. We’ll move again as soon as it’s dark.”
The cider and perhaps the lost blood did their job, and when Beth awoke she felt more rested than she had in weeks. But her leg had stiffened up and now throbbed with pain. The idea of standing on it, much less walking for miles, was hard to imagine.
Anja and Josef were leaning against a tree. Josef was scraping a long branch with their knife—their only weapon.
“What’s that?” Beth croaked.
Immediately Anja scooted closer and handed Beth an apple— part of the food the farmer’s wife had given them. “We’re saving the potatoes,” she said. “Maybe once we reach the sea we can actually risk having a fire and bake them in the embers.”
“And this,” Josef said as he stood and presented her with the smooth branch, “is your crutch. Try it on for size,” he urged.
Anja and Josef helped Beth to her feet. The pain that shot up her leg the minute she put weight on it nearly made her cry out, but she bit her lip and anchored the crude crutch under her arm. It took only a few minutes for her to get the rhythm of using it in place of her injured leg. She made her way around a tree and grinned at them.
“Well, there’s no need to go showing off,” Anja teased as Beth increased her speed on a second circuit of the tree.
Josef was watching her closely, his handsome face furrowed into a frown.
“It’s good, and it’s almost dark, so let’s get going,” she said. Then she looked at him more closely. “What on earth are you wearing?”
He grinned sheepishly. “Anja made one of the blankets into a sort of poncho for me. Do you like it?”
“Very dashing,” Beth said, and she realized that in spite of her injury she was filled with hope. For the first time in days they were all warm, they had food, and they had the map and compass. For the first time since they’d left Sobibor, she truly believed that they might actually make it to freedom.
“Ready then?” Josef hooked an arm through the knapsack and handed Anja the compass.
“This way,” she said, and they moved away from the shadows of the forest and into the night that was blessed by cloud cover and the hint of rain.
Josef had estimated that, if the farmer’s wife was right, it would take them three nights of travel to reach the coast. Of course that did not allow for the fact that by the end of the second night Beth’s leg had become badly infected and she was running a high fever. The bandages were stiff with dried blood and pus, and they had no other clean rags they could use. He had to risk going into one of the villages for help.
The coat that Anja wore was a man’s coat, far too large for her small frame. She and Josef had exchanged outer garments after they’d discovered how the oversized coat restricted Anja’s movements that first night traveling. With the coat of a local and a cap he had found one night when scrounging for food behind a bakery in a town days earlier, Josef hoped that his appearance in the small village of Olsztyn would not draw attention. After all, as the war had raged on for year after year, people’s circumstances had worsened to the point where many people looked like vagrants these days.
“Try to keep her still,” he instructed Anja, handing her the remainder of the cider. “If anyone comes…”
“Go,” Anja ordered. “I know what to do.”
It was just after dawn when he entered the village. Few people were around at this hour, and he walked quickly toward what seemed to be the main part of town. He passed the butcher’s shop, the fish market—a sure sign that they were close to the sea—the chemist’s…
The chemist!
Josef didn’t need a doctor—he was a doctor. He needed the tools to make Beth better—medicine and bandages and disinfectant and…
Thou shalt not steal.
But he had no money—nothing he could even barter for the goods he so desperately needed. This was his wife—the woman he hoped to spend the rest of his life with. If she died, what meaning was there for anything? For the escape? For everything they had been through?
He saw the shopkeeper unlock the door and go inside. The lights came on—necessary at this time of the morning and probably throughout the day given the overcast sky. He watched through the window as the man went about the business of preparing his store for the day—checking the cash register, opening the radiators to bring more heat, taking a broom from a corner.
Josef tried the door and as he stepped inside and shut the door, its bell jangling all the while; the chemist looked up. “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?” Josef asked politely as he approached the counter. The man was older than he’d appeared at first, his skin lined with the years, his hair thin and wispy. Josef knew that he could easily overpower the man and take what he needed before any alarm could be raised.
“Ja,” the chemist answered and continued speaking in German as he asked, “How may I help you?”
Josef recited the list of supplies he needed even as he studied the calendar posted on the wall behind the counter. They had been traveling for days—weeks—but he’d had no idea that it was already nearly the end of October. Still the chemist clearly took pains to cross off the days, and there it was before him—October the twenty-ninth. As Josef placed his order, the shopkeeper immediately began gathering them and setting them next to the brass-plated cash register. “Will that be all?”
“I cannot pay,” Josef blurted. “But I can work—I can sweep the shop for you and do anything you need for two hours.” By then he calculated the town would begin to come alive with shoppers and the usual business of any village on a weekday.
The man stared at him for a long moment. “You are Jewish?”
“No,” Josef protested, but immediately thought, what if he were? What did it matter whether he was Jewish or Danish or Polish or American? “Please…my wife…”
The man turned away and reached for something. Josef edged toward the door. But when the chemist faced him again, Josef saw that he was adding items to the order. “Is she very ill?”
“Ja. Fever, chills. I am a doctor, but without…”
“She has been wounded?”
Since Josef had specified bandages and disinfectant and a pair of long tweezers as part of the order, he could hardly deny the man’s guess.
“The bullet is lodged in her leg,” he admitted.
“Take these for now and try to get the fever down. Then bring her tonight to the rear entrance—after midnight—you’ll hear the clo
ck tower chime the hour. You can operate here and remove the bullet.” He finished, tying the string that held the brown paper around the package of supplies. He handed it to Josef. “Tonight,” he said again and pointed to a rear doorway covered by a curtain. “Go.”
Throughout the day Anja and Josef took turns caring for Beth while the other one slept. It occurred to Josef that the chemist might easily have reported him, that local police or even German soldiers might even now be on their way to search the woods.
He was beyond caring.
What he knew was that Beth was better—the fever was down, and he had been able to dress the wound properly. The bullet was still lodged there, but tonight…
He felt someone shake him. “Josef? It’s time,” Anja whispered.
He sat up and heard the village clock striking the hour. He shook off sleep and crawled over to where Beth had been lying on a bed of pine needles all day. Her eyes were open.
“Josef?” She slurred the word and smiled up at him.
He glanced over his shoulder at Anja. “I gave her the rest of the cider. I guess that along with the medicine might have made her a little…”
There was no way she would be strong enough to walk even with the crutch, so Josef gathered her into his arms while Anja packed up everything and made certain they left no evidence of having been there.
“Ready?”
“Lead on,” Anja said as together they stepped out into the open and headed for the village.
But as they approached the chemist’s shop Josef immediately saw that something was wrong. In the first place the lights were all on. In the second place a car was parked in front. He motioned for Anja to head down a narrow lane that ran between the butcher’s and the fish market.
“Wait here,” he whispered as he set Beth down so that she was hidden by several wooden barrels behind the fish market.
Cautiously he edged his way back to the main street to a position where he could see into the shop without being seen. The chemist was there looking older and more frail than ever as two large men in uniform stood over him. Obviously one of the men was shouting at him.
Josef’s heart sank. They had to go, and the sooner the better. If only there were some way of transporting Beth other than carrying her. He searched the alley for ideas, and outside the back entrance to the chemist’s he saw a three-wheeled cart—the kind they had used at Sobibor to transport the luggage left by the prisoners at the side of the train.
When he got close enough to examine it, he saw that it had been outfitted with bedding and blankets, and he knew the chemist had prepared it for him to take Beth away once he’d removed the bullet. He considered what he could do to help the poor man who was even now being questioned inside but knew he would only make matters worse for him if he interfered.
He stood with his hands poised on the handles of the cart and closed his eyes. He prayed for the chemist and his family and promised God that one day he and Beth would return here and thank the man for his kindness—and his courage.
CHAPTER 23
Beth faded in and out of consciousness. One minute it was pitch black, although she knew that her eyes were open, and the next she saw a sliver of a moon. One minute she felt herself being carried along on a bumpy ride, her body cushioned by padding to all sides as whatever conveyance she was in stumbled over cobblestone streets.
“Josef?” she whispered, but her lips were cracked and dry, and her throat burned for lack of moisture.
At one point she thought she heard Anja say that they were nearly there, and she wondered where there might be. She had no feeling in her leg, and she wondered if perhaps she would be crippled for life.
Life.
They were still alive—all three of them. Anja seemed to have recovered her indomitable spirit, and Josef—dear brave Josef. She could hear the now-familiar sound of his steady breathing and knew that he was the one pushing her forward. They were on the move—to freedom at last.
The terrain changed. They had left the cobblestones behind and were making the trek across a field of mud. It was raining hard, and suddenly they stopped.
“It’s stuck,” Josef said.
From close by, Beth heard what sounded like the cars of a train being hooked one to the other. “That door is open,” Anja called. “Come on. We can make it. It’s going north, and we can—”
Her voice was lost in a crack of thunder as Josef lifted Beth into his arms and started across the muddy field. She forced herself to focus on their destination, determined to do whatever she could to help make certain they reached the train in time.
She could see Anja scrambling aboard an open cattle car. She and Josef were still twenty yards away as he plodded through the mud.
“Put me down,” she demanded. “Josef, put me down and let me lean on you so we can make it before it leaves.”
To her surprise he did as she asked, and using him as her crutch, she hobbled the last few yards to the train. Overcome by the stress and fears of the last several weeks, she started to laugh.
“Don’t,” Josef said as he reached to lift her again.
She pushed his hand away as she continued to hop toward their destination. “I’m all right,” she said but could not stop laughing. “It’s just that…”
“She’s delirious,” she heard Josef tell Anja as he hoisted her onto the bare floor of the cattle car just as the train began to move.
“I am not,” she protested, lying flat on her stomach, as was Anja, their arms outstretched to Josef, who was now running alongside the train.
As the train gathered speed, he made his move and managed to flop down next to them in the car.
“You want to tell me what was so funny back there?” he asked irritably as he brushed himself off and bent to examine her dressing.
“I just suddenly thought about a picnic our Quaker community has every summer back in Wisconsin,” Beth said as she combed his hair back from his eyes with her fingers. “We always ran a three-legged race, and the way you and I were hobbling across that field…”
Anja giggled.
Josef frowned.
“Well, she’s got a point,” Anja said. “Under other circumstances the two of you would have made quite a humorous sight.”
Josef still did not laugh—did not even smile.
Beth took hold of his face, forcing him to look at her instead of her wound. “Josef, I am going to be all right—we are all going to be all right,” she said.
“How can you be so certain?”
“I don’t know, but what would be the point of bringing us this far if there were no purpose?”
Josef settled himself next to her while Anja made a pillow for herself of the knapsack—almost empty now.
Beth laced her fingers with Josef’s and rested her cheek on his shoulder. The pain in her leg that the medicine had masked was beginning to break through again. But they were on a train—not walking for miles and miles through all kinds of weather. They were dry if not exactly warm. They had food—for now. “I believe that we will be all right, Josef—all three of us. God has other work for us to do.”
“I wish I had your faith,” Josef murmured.
“You can—close your eyes, open your heart, and look inward, Josef. The answers are there inside you—they always have been.”
Josef didn’t have to be told that Beth’s pain had returned. He was well aware that the effects of the medicine he’d given her could not last forever. In truth he had thought that once he’d been able to remove the bullet, the kindly chemist would have made certain that they left with everything they would need for her recovery.
But such plans had been dashed the minute he saw the soldiers questioning their rescuer. There would be no surgery, no sterile instruments he could use to take out the bullet. And there would be no more medicine. The fever and infection most likely would return. He was desperate to get Beth to a place where she could receive proper care. Time was the enemy. They had miles to go yet, and it was already
the first of November. The temperatures would continue to drop, and their tattered clothing would not keep them warm once they faced nights below freezing.
To further complicate matters, they had to remain on constant alert, and now that task was up to him and Anja. While the train was in motion, they were all right, but when it stopped, they had to hide in the corner of the cattle car, and because there was no cargo or livestock to hide behind, they had to hope that no one would decide to check the empty cars. Worse, Josef feared that the empty car they occupied might be uncoupled and left behind before they reached their destination.
Even on the battlefield as he’d crawled from one wounded soldier to the next, Josef had not been as terrified as he was now. The stakes were so much higher—he had a wife and a cause that he believed in. The White Rose might have perished with the arrests of his friends, and it had been evident that the people would not rise up and take back their government. But the acts of courage and defiance that he had witnessed at Sobibor had inspired him. He could do more. He had to do more.
But first he had to get Beth and Anja to safety.
“Tell me more about your relatives in Bornholm,” he said to Anja as Beth dozed and the train rumbled its way toward the coast.
“My grandfather is a fisherman—herring mostly. He and my grandmother have lived on the island their whole lives. As a girl I used to spend summers with them. I loved being there.”
“The island is occupied?”
Anja nodded. “The last letter that Benjamin and I had from them before…” Her voice drifted off as it so often did whenever she thought about her late husband. But then she rallied and continued. “It sounded as if the Germans leave the locals pretty much alone—no roundups and no Gestapo—at least not then.”
“That would have been how long ago?”
Anja calculated, counting out the months. “Over a year now,” she said softly as if she could not believe so much time had passed. “They wanted us to go there and stay until the war ended. My grandfather said that he would train Benjamin in the fishing business. How Benjamin laughed at that idea. ‘How can I go out to sea when I can’t even swim?’ he used to say.” She was silent for a long moment and then said, “How I wish we had gone.”