The Ragged Edge of Night

by Olivia Hawker

  Emil smiles. “Anton, my dear friend. The question does you credit, but how can you doubt that I serve God? I always serve the Lord.”

  That can only mean—aided by the Spirit, illuminated, Anton sees with the bright-white clarity of a bolt from Heaven—Father Emil does not serve the National Socialists. He is no gauleiter, no fat Franke in his furniture shop—no lapdog of Hitler. “You resist?” The words tumble out of him, half laughter, and his eyes burn with tears. “There is a resistance?”

  And now it’s Emil who takes Anton by the shoulder and bolsters his spirit with a firm grip. “Of course there is, my friend. You are my friend, in truth. Of course we resist. Christ’s love can’t be blotted from the world so easily, not by the hand of any man. It will take a power far greater than the NSDAP to put out our light.”

  “It seems there is no greater power. I’ve almost come to believe that.” The tears are falling freely now, but he is not ashamed. The Spirit doesn’t allow for shame, in His healing and holy presence.

  “You have almost come to believe, but not entirely.”

  Anton shakes his head, slowly. For the moment, he is bereft of words, hollowed by awe and relief.

  “There is a greater force, Anton—I promise you. There is a power in this world that no evil can overcome.”

  Day after day, it rises. Like a tide, it swells. Every outrage, every death, each new act of inhumanity wrings from us another drop of resolve, even when we think our spirits dust dry and deadened. We flow together; we merge; the burning-salt wash of our tears and the breath of our sobbing voices, the tension of our tightened jaws, our current of despair. We are a river eroding its banks. We will no longer be contained. There is a greater force. Its name is Widerstand, resist. We call it White Rose, and Grauer Orden; we call it Non-Compliance. In the streets of Munich and Berlin, the boys, unbroken, take fists to the faces of the Hitler Youth, and we call them Edelweiss Pirates. We call the force Unbowed, Unbent, and Father Emil, and Anton.

  “Will you do it? Will you carry my words? The pay is very good, I can tell you.”

  He nods. What else can he do but accept? “I won’t do it for the pay, though—not only for that.”

  Again, Emil smiles. “No, of course you won’t. You of all people—you listen to the voice of the Lord.”

  Truly we are full of power by the spirit of the Lord, and of judgment, and of might. Hear this, we pray you, ye heads of the house of Power, and princes of the house of Oppression, that abhor judgment and pervert all equality. You build up our nation with blood, and stain the world with iniquity.

  Certainty, a conflagration in his spirit—his ears ring with the sound of God’s call. He says, “When do I start?”

  16

  His first assignment takes him to Wernau several weeks later. The town lies only a few kilometers away—near enough to walk—but it feels like another country, another world. The town is much like Unterboihingen, with its old stucco buildings and medieval air—though even at first glance, Anton can tell the population of Wernau is at least twice that of his home village. It’s not the buildings or the people that leave Anton feeling like a foreigner but rather the eerie sense of being watched. On the long walk from Unterboihingen, he never imagined he would feel the prickle of eyes upon his back. And now, with that sinister itch burning between his shoulders, he can’t decide whether the danger is real or conjured up by his own feverish thoughts.

  Father Emil coached him on the work, made Anton rehearse the casual stroll, the friendly nod and smile that would allow him to pass unnoticed in Wernau. They practiced, too, a smooth handshake, the passing of a small slip of folded paper from one palm to another. Emil had pronounced Anton ready, but now that he has arrived in Wernau, uncertainty wracks him, makes him twitch at every sound—the blow of a hammer from a carpenter’s shop, the barking of a terrier from an upstairs window.

  Easy, he reminds himself. You’re natural as can be. There’s nothing unusual about paying a visit to Wernau. He has only come to pick up a copy of sheet music from Wernau’s priest—they, too, have an organ. That’s the excuse Father Emil has arranged for this foray. Sheet music, and one other small, insignificant mission . . .

  The bell tower of Wernau’s Catholic church rises above the town’s dark rooftops. Anton makes his way steadily toward it, weaving through a group of schoolchildren who are enjoying an outdoor lesson. He dodges a flock of geese being driven from the front of an old Oma’s cottage to her vegetable patch out back; he nods in greeting to the midwife on her bicycle, though she pedals with obvious haste, eyes squinting toward her urgent destination, and takes no notice of Anton at all. No one in Wernau, in fact, looks twice at Herr Starzmann. But still, he can’t rid himself of the queasy sensation that everyone is watching, everyone knows.

  He passes a fruit seller with a few apples and pears on his cart, a woman unraveling an old sweater on a stool beside her front door, an old, stooped man carrying a string of dead pigeons over his shoulder. There are two fellows near his own age, talking earnestly over a single-page newspaper as they walk—and right behind them, a boy no older than fifteen in the brown uniform of Hitler Youth, the red blaze of a loyalist’s armband drawing Anton’s eye like a stain of blood. Three little girls in an alley, stringing wet stockings on a line. They are old enough to be in school; it’s a shame duties keep them at home. Has the war made them orphans, he wonders, or has it merely widowed their poor mother?

  He looks at every person he passes, but never for long. He must locate his contact, but he mustn’t draw attention to his presence. There is no sign of the man Father Emil described, and he has almost reached the church, almost passed through the whole of Wernau itself. He has just begun to ask himself what excuse he’ll find to remain in the town for another hour when he sees his goal: a man of middling height but broad build, ambling from the nearest corner toward a small public garden. He’s wearing a bowler hat of the same iron-gray as his suit—just as Emil had said. With a tingle of dismay, Anton realizes his contact had been walking the long street nearly its whole length, some dozen paces ahead of Anton himself. He must develop a sharper eye and quicker wit if he’s to have any hope of succeeding in this new role.

  Anton continues to the church—not as lovely on the inside as St. Kolumban, for all its ornate exterior—and retrieves the sheet music from its priest. “Father Emil sends his warmest greetings,” he tells the black-robed old Opa, “and his thanks.” The music goes into his knapsack the moment he’s in the churchyard again. He has no need of music, anyway; he memorized all the best hymns when he was still a child. He straightens, tossing the sack on his shoulder, and looks around anxiously. The contact remains in the garden, slouched on a wooden bench, arms folded tightly over his chest.

  Anton must restrain himself from running to the garden. Even a brisk walk would be unseemly; he meanders from the church to the garden’s little arched gate and pauses to read the new bronze plaque set into its post.

  THIS PUBLIC GARDEN HAS BEEN CREATED AND MAINTAINED FOR THE ENJOYMENT OF OUR CITY.

  THE LEAGUE OF GERMAN GIRLS, WERNAU CHAPTER

  He suppresses a shudder. The garden isn’t large, but it is tidily kept, and planted with ornamental foliage, the only color allowed by early spring. Anton sees nothing but a blur of coppery reds and smoke green as he wanders among the beds. His thoughts are all for the girls who built this place.

  In the days of his youth, there were myriad clubs for children—camping clubs and music groups, scouting societies and improvement associations, every sort of service organization one could imagine. All of them dedicated to a single goal: the wholesome occupation and education of children. Now, the Party has disbanded the old clubs and replaced them with only two: the League of German Girls, for the indoctrination of young women, and Hitler Youth, whose primary function seems to be the manufacture of cannon fodder for the front lines. Every boy between the ages of fourteen and eighteen is required to join.

  His leisurely circuit of the garden fi
nally brings him to the bench where the man in the gray suit is waiting. Now Anton can see that the fellow has pulled the edge of his bowler hat down across his eyes. His breaths are deep and slow; he gives every impression of having fallen asleep, though how anyone could sleep in this damp, chilly air is a mystery to Anton. He sits on the far side of the bench, rummages in his knapsack, and pulls out his modest lunch, packed for him by Elisabeth. He unwraps the paper to reveal a few slices of hard sausage, boiled eggs, and a small round of soda bread.

  “One would think we’d have snow again, with this cold,” Anton says quietly, peeling an egg, “but it smells more like rain to me.”

  There is no response from the man in gray. Anton drops the eggshell on the ground and crushes it beneath his foot. He waits, but still no reply is made.

  Should he speak again? Should he get up and leave? Perhaps he is mistaken; he has found the wrong man in the wrong gray suit. He taps the second egg on the bench and is about to peel it, too, when the man tilts his head, just far enough to peer at Anton from beneath his hat.

  “I do feel rain in the air,” he mutters.

  Anton is so relieved, he nearly laughs. But that would make him entirely too conspicuous. He takes a bite of egg instead and, with his other hand, slides the folded paper from his coat pocket. He lets the scrap fall on the bench between them. The man in gray makes no move to retrieve it.

  “You’re new,” he says, still slouched in feigned slumber.

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve done well so far. Didn’t stick out too badly, here in Wernau, though you are so damnably tall and thin.”

  Anton finds it disconcerting to carry on a conversation while eating—and a conversation with a stranger, at that. Moreover, this man insists on huddling beneath his hat—not a posture conducive to friendly terms. He turns to face the man as he speaks. “Thank you. If it was meant for a compliment.”

  The man in gray tuts. “Don’t turn toward me. You’ll draw eyes.”

  Anton straightens on the bench, working away at the dry sausage.

  “That’s better. This is dangerous work, New Fellow. There’s no room for error.”

  “Error?”

  The contact’s shoulders shake, a silent laugh. “Plenty in our line of work have slipped up, believe me. You’ve heard of von Gersdorff, I assume.”

  “I can’t say I have.”

  “No fault to you; it happened only a few days ago. He decided he was willing to die, himself, if he could end the ultimate evil in the bargain.”

  The sausage is too dry to swallow; it sits like a rock halfway down Anton’s throat. “What do you mean?”

  “It was at the old armory museum in Unter den Linden,” the gray man says. “Our dear leader and a few of his closest friends were to tour the place, take in the glory of military might, all that sort of thing. This Gersdorff fellow loaded his pockets with explosives and set a timed fuse, and then he followed that one, whose name we all know, around like a puppy.” Better not to say Hitler where any passing person may hear. One never knows who is keeping a sharp ear out for betrayal. “But wouldn’t you know it? The man has no patience for glory or military might. He was in and out of the exhibit before Gersdorff’s pocket bombs could detonate. Imagine the poor fellow’s agony, standing there with his coat pockets ticking away while that one strolled off unharmed!”

  “Lord have mercy,” Anton mutters. “Was Herr Gersdorff killed?”

  “Not this time. He ran to the bathroom, where no one could see, and managed to defuse the devices with mere seconds to spare. It would be enough to make a man roar with laughter, if it weren’t so deadly serious. So you see, mein Herr—no room for error. In this business, our business, it comes down to seconds. Heartbeats.”

  Anton whispers, “I understand. I’ll be more careful next time.”

  The gray man shifts on the bench and stretches his arms. When Anton glances down, the folded message has disappeared. He never saw the man take it.

  “I’ve a lot to learn,” Anton tells him.

  “But you will learn. Everything depends on it—everything depends on all of us being as clever and as careful as we can. Only with great caution will we carry out our mission. We all wish for a speedier conclusion to this mess, but haste makes waste, as the Americans say.”

  “What is the mission, exactly? That’s one thing I don’t quite understand.”

  This time, the man’s laugh is not so silent. “Mein Herr, don’t force me to remove my hat and give you a scornful stare. I find this hat to be a brilliant disguise.”

  Anton amends his question. “Obviously, the ultimate goal is—well, what Herr Gersdorff attempted. But we—you and I, and the man I work with back in my village—what part do we play? That scrap of paper I dropped from my pocket . . .” His voice sinks even lower, barely audible now even to his own ears. “Do we send information to the Tommies?”

  “Some of us are spies, yes. Some of us transmit whatever intelligence we can glean to the Tommies and Americans—anyone at all, provided they might help us undo what has been done to Germany. Others pass around leaflets, when it’s safe to do so. Literature might inspire our friends and neighbors to stand up and fight alongside us. There are those who move people in secrecy—Jews and Romany, homosexuals, nuns, journalists—anyone the Party has fixed in their sights. We have networks, you see—chains of cellars and attics and spaces between walls. By night, we guide the refugees from one hiding place to the next until they are over the border and can finally seek real aid from friendlier nations.”

  “And you?” Anton says. “What do you do? What do we do?” Something in the man’s speech has told him that this work—Anton’s work—has little to do with these efforts. They are driving at a different goal entirely.

  “We, my friend, are hard at work on the most dangerous and most important task of all. Without telling you too much, you understand.”

  “Of course.” It’s unsafe to know too much.

  “Thanks to us, there will be no wolf left to terrify us. I would say ‘Soon there will be no wolf,’ but it would be a lie. We might not act soon—or we might, if the right opportunity arises. But we will act, and when we do, the leader of the wolves’ pack will howl no longer.”

  Assassination. That is their goal.

  “You’ve stopped eating, mein Herr,” the gray man says, though he hasn’t lifted his hat to see.

  God has said, Thou shall not kill. But God never stopped the gray bus from coming. Perhaps there are times, Anton thinks, when the Lord makes exceptions. He won’t allow it to trouble him for more than a moment. As the gray man has said, it comes down to seconds in this business—heartbeats. Anton’s heart goes on beating, and the warmth of righteousness settles over him like a cloak. He picks up the soda bread and takes half the round in a single bite. He doesn’t look at his contact, but he grins at the man all the same.

  17

  Late April. When the sun finds a hole in its clouded shroud, the light glares off what remains of the snow, off the surfaces of puddles in the ruts of the road. It’s enough to make you squint, looking out the window at a world wet and striving, struggling to renew. The green and growing things are winning that fight. Everywhere, they push up through crusts of old ice, the shoots of sapling trees and spikes of crocus flowers yet to unfold. Winter can’t keep its hold forever. As he stands beside the sitting-room window, watching the lane beyond the Hertz farmhouse, Anton can hear the running and dripping of meltwater from the eaves. This weather, cold and wet, with a forbidding, iron-gray sky, keeps the roads almost as empty as they have been all winter long. Who will venture out or roam between villages unless urgent business compels him?

  The strong odor of cooked cabbage fills the small house. The children are gathered around the table, dunking eggs into bowls of boiled red cabbage or onion skins. Later, they will tie the eggs with ribbons and hang them from the willow branches Elisabeth has brought inside.

  “Look, Vati.” Maria holds an egg above her head
for Anton to see. The blue-green dye runs down her arm into her sleeve.

  “Your eggs are very pretty.” He kisses Maria on the cheek and gives each boy’s hair a tousle. To Elisabeth, stirring more cabbage dye on the stove, he says, “I’m off now. I’ll try to be home by suppertime, but with the roads so muddy, you know—”

  Without looking up, she says, “Who looks for piano lessons the Friday before Easter?”

  “It may be unusual, but we need the money.” He kisses her cheek, too, but she doesn’t turn toward him, and never stops her stirring. He can feel her tense waiting, the stiff, upright posture of her irritation. Piano lessons don’t bring in enough money to bother with. He knows it, and Elisabeth does, too. How, then, will he explain the money he’ll bring home tonight? The bounty that will spill from his pocket.

  “I think I may have found a buyer.”

  She stops stirring the cabbage. Her brow pinches as she looks up at him. “A buyer? What do you mean?”

  “The brass. You remember.”

  The frown lifts from her face, and a radiance of relief alights in its place. “Anton! Are you sure?”

  “Nothing is certain yet. I’ll need to discuss it . . . negotiate. After I give my piano lesson.”

  She sighs happily. “That’s a weight off my back. Have you sold all the instruments?”

  “I’ve sold nothing yet. Remember that; it won’t do for you to expect more than I can deliver. But I think one or two might sell.”

  “It’s a start.” She smiles at him, briefly, almost shy. Then she returns to the cabbage. Anton tries to ignore the pressure of guilt swelling in his stomach.

  “Which town are you visiting today?” Albert asks, rolling his red-orange egg in a towel.

  “Kirchheim.” He tells the truth—in this, if nothing else—before he realizes he ought to lie. The secret work is still too new; he hasn’t learned the nuances of being a message carrier, a resister. He must be more careful—discreet. Surely the gauleiter sees every coming and going. No one tramps through a puddle in Unterboihingen without Möbelbauer noticing.