by L. E. Waters
But she gives me a nod. “Someone needs to watch her and make sure she’s all right.” Verena pulls her hard enough to carry her away in the chaos of people.
I make sure Elfi, Sibylle, and Kathrin are beside me and pull them over to tall Lee standing high above the crowd.
“Verena and Juliane are going back to France.”
He slaps his hands down on his thighs. “Everyone just keeps changing plans on me.” He sees how hard it would be to try to get them back now and gives up. “Fine, let them fend for themselves. Two less for me to worry about. You four stay close to me.” Lee puts an arm across us to keep us from joining the line to the ramp to the dock. “Don’t speak to anyone. Let me talk. People around here don’t take kindly to anything German. If anyone asks, you are French and don’t speak English.”
“What if they speak French?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Then I will say you are also very unfriendly.”
Kathrin usually would have smiled at that, but I smile alone.
Chapter 27
As we drive through the cities and villages to our unknown destination, I’m surprised by the bleakness and lack of color everywhere. “Where are all the decorations? The trees and the ribbons?” I ask Lee. “You wouldn’t even know Christmas was a day away.”
He doesn’t take his eyes off the road. “Folks aren’t feeling very festive since the boys reported to duty at the end of August and rationing is in full effect. It’s nearly impossible to buy dinner, let alone bows and wreaths.”
I wonder if Germany looks the same.
“At least the children are being children. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many kids playing outside,” Sibylle says.
Elfi says, “They don’t look very happy to me.” Just then we pass by a few children of scattered heights sitting on a stoop, looking forlorn.
“Most likely those are the evacuees. Children have been sent from the bigger cities in hordes out to the countryside to live with families until the greatest threat is over.”
Kathrin watches as a tiny child grasps a worn-out old bear in her little hand and sucks her thumb, all alone in front of dark stone house.
“They’re sent to live with strangers? Without their mothers?” I ask.
He gives me a glance. “Some mothers tried to come along, but not many are keen on living with a strange adult. The children are hard enough to place as it is.”
“Oh, my heart breaks for these little dears.” Sibylle pulls out a cotton handkerchief to wipe away her tears.
“You should have seen this place when the evacuations began. Small children were simply packed onto trains with one adult chaperone to twenty children, then dumped here for anyone to come and claim. The cute ones and little ones were chosen right away and the older ones or dirty ones were just ignored.”
Sibylle gasps. “That’s terrible. Can we take any in?”
“And that is just the low profile I want you all to keep: taking in evacuees into your small, German-speaking household.” Lee laughs. “Most of them have gone back home by now anyway, since there haven’t been any raids and people are getting tired of the situation. All that trouble for nothing.” He turns to tell the girls in the backseat, “They had a terrible task of finding new homes constantly, since the children were so traumatized that most of them wet their beds.”
“I don’t want to hear about this anymore. Please stop talking.” Kathrin closes her eyes until we’re out of the village.
Lee takes us directly to a quaint cottage surrounded by farmland.
As soon as we step out of the car, Elfi says, “You’re leaving us in the middle of nowhere?”
Lee grabs our suitcases out. “The perfect place for you all to keep to yourselves until the war is over. Would you rather live in an important city where Hitler would love to bomb?”
“No, I think this place will do nicely.” Elfi searches the sky and hurries to the door.
Kathrin and I turn in a full circle to rolling farmland with small houses tucked here and there in the distance.
“I’m glad there’s no one around,” Kathrin mutters as she follows Lee.
Sibylle stretches her legs. “Will we be able to go for walks?”
“Since when do you go for walks?” I say. It was hard enough to get her to venture out to the garden.
“This new medicine has done wonders for me.” Her whole aura glows. “I could walk for miles.”
Lee struggles with our bags as he unlocks the door. “You can walk anywhere you like as long as you don’t ever talk to anyone. Remember, you’re French. If anyone says anything to you, your answer is, ‘Je ne parle pas anglais’.”
The door swings open to reveal a delightfully furnished sitting room, very similar to our home back in Germany.
Elfi nose crunches up. “Smells like spoiled milk.”
Lee piles up our things. “It’s been vacant for some time.”
“Nothing a little cleaning can’t fix,” I say as I drop into an armchair. Dust puffs out in every direction.
Sibylle comes to sit next to me and coughs. “Good thing Juliane isn’t here. She’d already be out the door if she saw this filth.”
Kathrin opens up a cupboard and finds a bucket, some rags, and a large bar of soap. “No point in sitting down, then. Let’s get started so we can unpack our things.”
“Before you all get busy, I need to go over a few things.” Lee checks his wristwatch. “I have to get back to London.”
Kathrin leaves her bucket and comes to sit with Elfi on the sofa. They ease down slowly to keep the dust from flying.
Lee says, “You can take walks and stay within the property, but refrain from going into the village where people might get curious about you.”
I ask, “But how are we going to get food?”
“I’ll come at least once a week to make sure you have enough supplies. Just don’t do anything that will draw any attention to you.” He looks at Elfi.
She draws back with her eyebrows knitted. “Why are you looking at me?”
He continues. “This is a safe place. They’ve evacuated city dwellers here because it’s so far from Hitler’s prime targets.”
“You say that like England’s a huge country. I’m sure Hitler would be overjoyed to cover most of the island.” She shakes her head. “We’re not far from anything.”
Lee is used to Elfi’s paranoia at this point. “Well, it’s much safer than where you were before.” He gets up and walks to the casement windows. “Make sure you draw these blackout curtains after dusk. You could be fined, and we wouldn’t want neighbors coming to the door telling you to put your lights out.”
“Je ne parle pas anglais,” I joke, and at least Sibylle laughs. I open up the basket that held Teresia this whole journey and hug her to me. “Now where will we put you?”
Lee turns. “Come with me.”
I follow him out the back door and he points to a much smaller hutch than the one Fridric built, tucked up beside the cottage. Lee’s dimple is deep when he sees my surprise. I slide the latch and release her into her new home. “Thank you, Lee.”
“This spot is sheltered from the wind and direct sun.” He checks with me. “A rabbit farmer told me that was important.” He reaches into the bedding box to pull out dark wool. “He told me she also needed proper bedding material for the cold days.”
Teresia doesn’t like the disruption of her new home and immediately grabs the wool from him with her teeth and tries to push it back into her bed.
“See, she already loves it. This is perfect for her.”
Elfi appears at the doorway. “Enough with the rabbit. We need to get this place cleaned up in time for dinner.”
Lee shuts the hutch and puts a hand on my shoulder to guide me back inside. “I will leave you all to your cleaning, then.”
“How convenient to have to leave just as we’re cleaning.” Kathrin picks up a broom.
He laughs. “Tomorrow i
s Christmas, and I have to search out a decent holiday meal for four very deserving girls, which is no easy task with this rationing.” He picks up a box from the floor and places it on the simple oak table. Dust flies out yet again. “This will do until I can get back tomorrow.”
I peek in to see canned goods, a few loaves of bread, a jar of preserves, tea, and some evaporated milk. “Of course, this will do. But won’t you stay for dinner at least?”
“I’d love to, but we’re not allowed to use our headlights, and I try not to drive after dusk as much as possible.” He glances out at the setting sun. “I’ve left a metal bucket full of coal to keep the stove lit. But be conservative, coal is getting harder to find.”
I say, “We will only use it when we need to.” The house already feels cold.
He grabs the top of his hat with one hand and rests it on his crown. “Remember, avoid people.” He’s about to shut the door when he thinks of something else. “I almost forgot. You see that over there?”
We follow his index finger.
“A telephone!” Elfi shrieks.
“That’s only for calling me. I left the number beside it. Don’t hesitate to call for anything.” He gives us a salute.
We nod obediently and watch him drive off down the empty road.
Sibylle says, “I don’t think we saw a single car come down this road since we’ve been here.”
“It’s the gas rations. People only drive when it’s critical,” Kathrin says as she thrusts a rag and soap into my hands. “Now let’s get this place cleaned up.”
“But it’s Christmas Eve,” Elfi whines.
Kathrin blows the hair out of her eyes and starts to sweep up. “It doesn’t matter what day it is, we can’t spend the night in this.”
It takes us all night to clean and unpack everything. We’re too tired to make a proper meal, so we simply toast the bread and have it with some jam and tea. There are enough bedrooms for each of us to have our own room, even though they’re just big enough for a small bed and a nightstand. I haven’t slept on my own since we left the hospital, and hadn’t had the luxury of a feather bed and thick wool blanket since I’d left home. I say a Christmas prayer and enjoy a still and dreamless sleep.
Lee returns, just as he promised, with a carful of gifts for us. “Merry Christmas!” he calls out as he struggles with the boxes and bags. I hold the door open for him as he loads himself like a packhorse and can barely fit through. He drops everything on our clean kitchen table with a few thuds. He’s out of breath. “It doesn’t look like a feast, but you wouldn’t believe what I had to give up to get it all.”
“Merry Christmas!” I say back. “You didn’t need to do all of this for us. We’re used to so little.”
Elfi’s already sticking her nose into the boxes when he shuts one on her. “All in good time, Elfi.”
“Let’s get started on our Christmas feast,” Sibylle says. She pulls out a string of sausages, a wheel of strong-smelling cheese, fresh bread, a bag of peas and carrots, six eggs, fresh milk, three potatoes, and a large bar of chocolate.
“Will this do?” Lee asks.
Elfi, Sibylle, and I squeal at the sight of the chocolate bar as Kathrin goes and sits down in the stiffest chair.
“Do? This is plenty.” I say to Kathrin, “We can probably make a sausage casserole.”
She shrugs her shoulders.
“And I think we’ll have enough left for a chocolate bread pudding.” Sibylle gets started on dicing up the bread while Elfi and I gather what we’ll need for the casserole.
Lee rolls up his sleeves. “What can I do?”
“You’ve done enough, just relax next to Kathrin there.” We laugh as Kathrin sticks her tongue out at my passive aggression.
“Oh no. Give me something to chop. My mother said I’m a brilliant chopper.” And he shines when we give him the potatoes to peel and chop.
Chapter 28
It may have not looked like Christmas, but after we made the feast, it sure smelled like Christmas, with the spicy scent of sausages and the rich aroma of melted chocolate.
Lee pulls himself away from the table and pats his tight stomach. “I have to say that was worth the trouble. You all have worked miracles with what I brought.”
Sibylle and I take the dishes to the sink, and I decide not to clean up since it’s Christmas, after all. Lee stands up and proclaims, “Now it’s time for the presents.”
“Presents?” Kathrin asks, and she follows him to the pile of mysterious items inside paper bags.
“No. We don’t need any presents,” I say. We didn’t get him anything.
“Don’t get upset.” He pulls a few of the bags out and places them at our feet. “You’ll soon see that these are unfortunately practical presents.”
We’re curious now and each bend over to pull out black rubber masks.
“Gas masks,” Lee says. “They’re all the rage around here.”
“I can’t see why.” Kathrin holds hers out from her like it’s dead.
“These masks have separate eyepieces and a large, can-shaped filter with a rubber earpiece at the side so you can telephone.”
Sibylle asks, “Why on earth would we want to chat on the phone if we’re getting gassed?”
“Me,” Lee says. “You’d call me so I could help you.”
I can’t imagine actually having to use these.
“No one goes anywhere without one. People bring them to work, ride their bicycles with them, some people sleep with them.” He plunks down another bag. “These are the cases so you can take them around with you.”
We each pull out a black cotton bag that could double as a large purse.
Elfi is the only one who glows at the sight of her mask. “How do I put it on?”
“Hold the mask to your face with one hand, squeeze your chin into it, and then tighten the three straps held together with a buckle on your head,” Lee instructs.
We practice it.
“Let me check to see if the seal’s tight.” Lee places a small book in front of the filter and I can’t breathe. “Good fit.” He removes the book so I can take deep, noisy breaths. The glass quickly fogs up. I can barely see the outlines of the girls in their strange masks. What an odd Christmas this is indeed.
Elfi panics. “How would we see anything during an attack?”
“I’d rather be able to breathe blind than suffocate being able to see,” Kathrin says as she removes her mask.
I peel off mine. “What will I do with Teresia in a gas attack?”
Lee smiles to one side. “I guess you’ll find out quickly if there is any real gas threat.” I give him a disparaging look and he shrugs. “They don’t make masks for bunnies, I’m afraid.”
Sibylle removes her mask as well, but Elfi keeps hers on.
“And I’ve saved the best for last.” Lee pulls out an envelope and passes it to me.
I scan the return address quickly. “It’s from Gustav!”
“Read it,” Elfi says in her filtered voice, sounding much farther away.
My sweet girls,
We have settled in rather nicely, and America suits me very well. I love the hustle and bustle of these Americans. Production has begun on our parachutes, and I can’t contain my smile when I see them all boxed up and ready to go give Hitler hell. Gitta hasn’t had an episode for days, and we’re taking her to one of the best doctors in New York City tomorrow. Ursel is going to start a new medicine that might help her filter out some of the hallucinations. Minna has gotten a job at the factory down the street. Juliane has just sent us a letter assuring us that Verena has stayed out of trouble, and Verena is single-handedly entertaining and keeping up the morale of the French soldiers. We live in a beautiful building that even has a balcony for Odelia to grow some roses. Everyone has their own rooms, and there is even a large guest room for the rest of you to come and visit us soon. We hate hearing about the dangers you face and pray for all your sa
fety. Odelia won’t sleep well until this war is over. Please send us a letter to assuage her worry.
Cheerio!
Gustav
Lee hands Sibylle a letter as well.
“Who is this from?” Sibylle asks. She peels open the letter and we watch as tears slowly fall and her smile disappears.
“What is it?” I’m almost afraid to ask.
“My daughter. I wrote to her before we left France and told her about my true illness. She feels guilty now for committing me and wants me to come live with her in Belgium.”
Elfi says inside her mask, “But you’re not going to go, right? She didn’t care a scratch about you before when she thought you were crazy, and now, only because you’re fixed, she wants you back.”
Sibylle takes a moment and refolds the letter. “What can I do? She’s my daughter. If she wants me, I must go.”
Kathrin chimes in, “Don’t make her feel bad. If she wants to go, she can go, can’t she, Lee?”
Lee rubs his head. “I really wish you girls would make this easier on me by staying together. But I can arrange for you to travel to Belgium if you really must.”
“When would you go?” I ask.
“Maybe I can wait another week for you all to settle in.”
Our Christmas party has lost all the joy, so Lee decides it’s time for one more surprise. He pulls out an old radio from his last box.
“Can we get the German channels from here?” I ask as Lee plugs it in and fiddles with the knobs.
“I don’t think so.”
“We don’t speak any English. What can we listen to, then?’ Elfi still has her mask on.
I ask her, “Aren’t you going to take that thing off?”
She only settles deeper into the chair. “I find it very comfortable.”
A lively holiday tune rings out and Lee immediately starts clapping to it. “You don’t need to understand the words, just listen to the beat.” He stops clapping to put his hands out to me and I twirl into them, but then break away to do my own dance. Sibylle gets up to dance along with us, and even Elfi practices her range of movement within the mask. I call for Kathrin to dance, but she only watches us. Kathrin never sits out dances. I settle in beside her as the other three keep dancing.