The Ragged Edge of Night

by Olivia Hawker

  Paul says, “Is there any chocolate in Kirchheim?”

  What is Easter without chocolate? Outside, near the foot of the staircase, the children have built their Hasengärtle, the rabbit garden, a round plot of grass fenced by broken twigs and bedded with soft green moss. Overnight, the visiting rabbit will whisk the dyed eggs from the willow branches and lay them out in the children’s garden, making a pretty picture to welcome the spring. If the rabbit is fortunate enough to find the traditional sweets—scarce, bedeviled as we are by war—then he’ll leave treats in the Hasengärtle, too, hidden among the eggs and flowers. What a thrilling thing to discover in the morning light. Anton has not yet asked Elisabeth how she managed Easters past, especially since the war began. He has a feeling the Easter rabbit hasn’t brought these children a bite of chocolate in years.

  He tells them, “I don’t know whether there’s any chocolate in Kirchheim. I suppose only the Easter rabbit can say.”

  Al tilts his head, too old now for such fantasies. “We don’t need chocolate. There are heaps of other things we should spend our money on.” But Anton can hear the longing in his voice.

  “Your mother raised you well. You’re a good, sensible boy.” He makes a private note: Find chocolate in Kirchheim, at all costs—the biggest, sweetest bar in all of Germany. Give it to Al and tell the boy he must eat the whole thing himself.

  “You don’t buy Easter chocolate, Albert,” Maria says. She is condescending, with all the lofty wisdom of a girl on the verge of seven. “The rabbit brings it if you’re good.”

  Albert rolls his eyes and sinks back in his chair. “Then I won’t waste my time wondering why the rabbit never brings you any.”

  “I had better be quick,” Anton says, “if I hope to make Kirchheim in time to speak with the rabbit.”

  Paul’s eyes widen. “Do you know him?”

  “I’ve met him a time or two.”

  He doesn’t attempt to kiss Elisabeth again. She is always stiff when he tries it; he suspects a brick wall would show more appreciation for affection.

  Settling his old-fashioned hat in place, wrapping his coat tightly around this body, Anton descends the stairs and faces the bite of springtime wind. The breeze stirs the scraps of dirty ribbon the children have tied to their Hasengärtle fence. In minutes, he is strolling down the main road, Unterboihingen at his back and his duty lying somewhere ahead.

  He hasn’t yet carried a dozen messages for the Widerstand, the resistance. Father Emil has assured him that with time and experience, the awkward sensation will dissipate—the feeling that a hundred pairs of eyes are fastened to his back, that they chase him through the streets, they scrutinize his every movement and expression. Anton prays the priest is right. Lord, give me confidence, for my stomach is always knotted and sour by the time I reach my destination.

  At least Anton has had one cause to thank God. He has never been required to take the tunnel—that musty old passage from the age of kings. Since the night just before Christmas, when he huddled with his family in the moldering ossuary below the church, the steel door has given him a shiver every time he has passed it. Dreams have often haunted his sleep—of groping through a blackness deeper than night with a folded piece of paper gripped in his teeth, while above, countless tons of earth sag, ready to fall, saturated and stinking with the coldness of death.

  One would think such nightmare visions—he has them both sleeping and waking—would leave him all but crippled by anxiety, hour after hour. They did, at first. But day by day, he has come to accept this new reality. Now the fears only plague him when he works—when he boards the buses that take him to Kirchheim or the train to Aichelberg. The fear of being followed pursues him down the tracks. On the bus, he sits in the back row so he can’t feel a stranger’s eyes on the back of his neck or imagine he senses a knowing stare. But other times, going about the minutiae of a father’s life, he has never felt freer or livelier, not since 1933. He has taken action; he has made his stand. With a hidden fist, he has struck back at the Party. And though he is only one man, and can strike no blow that will devastate like a British bomb, in his heart he believes the Reich will feel his wrath.

  He knows little about the messages he carries. They are, of course, encoded. Emil, too, remains comfortably in the dark. It’s better this way; they are links in a chain. If one link is apprehended and the connection is snapped, another can easily be forged—the mission will continue. Success is more important than knowledge. As for trusting the sources of their information and the safety of their orders, both Anton and Father Emil have already placed the fullness of their faith in God. It’s the best they can do, given their circumstances.

  As winter gave way to spring and the earth burgeoned again with new life, Father Emil found, among his various friends and confidantes, yet another source of work for Anton, beyond carrying the messages. Along the banks of the Neckar and in Wernau and Unterensingen—yes, even in Kirchheim—more families have hired Anton to teach their children music. Whether the parents are sympathetic to the resistance and offer up their homes as a convenient cover for the message carrier, or whether they truly wish their children to acquire a little culture, Anton hasn’t the least idea. Perhaps both motives are at play. Each family pays him a pittance apiece—no one can really afford music lessons now, not here in the country—but it’s not their pay he needs. It’s the excuse to visit their towns, to stand at the ordained street corner at the appointed time, and to say to the man in the gray felt hat, “A fine day, but do you smell rain coming?” just as the church bells ring. A friendly chuckle, as one would give to any talkative stranger on the street, and a polite handshake—no more than that—but it’s enough for a scrap of paper to pass from one palm to another.

  In Kirchheim today, the message changes hands more rapidly than usual, and his contact saunters casually away. His piano students are not in—they and their parents have gone to the church, making some preparation for Easter service—so he is free to hunt for his chocolate. He finds it at the bakery, though he must convince the proprietor to part with it. She is reluctant even to admit it exists. He pays dearly for the stuff, but the compensation from the Widerstand has been ample thus far. His family can afford this one small extravagance. Easter only comes once a year.

  The bus ride back from Kirchheim is always long, and it stinks of exhaust. He is glad to find himself at the crossroads where Austraße meets Ulmer Street. The walk home is more than an hour from here, but the day has turned fine, with a brisk spring wind sweeping the clouds off to the west and puddles shining silver in the ruts of the road. He whistles as he walks, hands in his trouser pockets, the chocolate tucked away safely in an inner pocket of his coat. His top hat is smart, if it is old-fashioned. How long has it been since he’s whistled?

  The day has gone so perfectly that he might feel tempted to apprehension, if he were a superstitious man. The chocolate seems a blessing from on high; he can already see the children’s faces when they find it in the rabbit garden—this miracle enough to make even Albert believe. The morning’s ice has melted; the banks of ditches are lush with new spring growth. This is the season of renewal, of hope unfolding, and optimism blooms for him now. Vaguely, with a kind of sheepish inner grin, he thinks he ought to disguise that outrageous upwelling of hope if he cannot stem it. It’s unseemly, in this time and place, when so many people despair.

  But those who are heavy of heart don’t know what he knows—that there is a resistance, that Germany has retained, in the smallest, thinnest capillaries buried deep inside its flesh, a lifeblood of essential goodness. Righteousness still flows, and ever will, Amen.

  Whistling, humming, he takes the track that runs toward the heart of the town, along a field newly plowed and carpeted by the first flush of early weeds. The field belongs to the Kopps, the three brothers Kartoffelbauer. They made thorough work of their spring plowing, and the earth is richly black where they have turned it over. The air smells of clean soil, mineral and damp. The
brothers will have a fine crop of potatoes come the early summer. Food for all their neighbors’ tables.

  Across the field, he sees two small figures near the dark line of a hedge. They are young and slight and some distance off, but near enough that Anton recognizes the habits and movements of his two young sons. He stops on the road, content to stand and watch them at their play. He is—all the world is—suffused with a rosy gladness. What a miracle it is, that he has come to know the children so well already. And what a pleasure to see them making up stories and games as all children do, in better places than this war-ravaged nation. The boys face one another. They each step back. What are they doing? Tossing something between them, back and forth, at every throw taking another step backward. What is it they’re throwing—a rock? No, it’s too light for its size. The object flies too easily, hanging at the apex of its arc before falling back into their hands. It must be a ball, then. Seized suddenly by an appetite for play, as if he is a boy himself, Anton thinks to call out to them, to run through the field and join in their game. He sets off, taking long, reaching steps across the furrows.

  But as he draws closer, Anton can see that it’s no ball the boys are tossing. Gray-green and oblong, as it hangs in the air he can see, as if it’s frozen in ice and magnified before his eyes, the score marks running down its sides like the scales of some deadly viper. His body goes cold. Where did the boys find a grenade? He staggers to a halt, staring, helpless with shock. Ought he to shout? If he does, will one of the boys miss his catch, and will the damned thing strike the ground with enough force to explode?

  Just in that moment, as Anton hesitates halfway across the potato field, Albert catches sight of his stepfather. Thank God, he catches the grenade, too, and says something to Paul, quick and urgent. They drop the thing on the ground—as it falls, all the world seems to constrict around Anton, crushing him with a weight of fear and helplessness—but it rolls harmlessly into a furrow. The boys turn their backs and run. They know they’ve done wrong.

  “Damn it!” It’s the closest he ever comes to cursing, but he bellows it now, roars those two hard words across the field. The sound only spurs the boys on; they fly over the field like a pair of hunted hares. Anton leaps into pursuit, does his best to catch them—to keep them in sight—but even the rawness of his fear and anger can’t make his aging body move any faster. If ever he needed a reminder that he is a man on the brink of middle age, he has it now.

  Nevertheless, he chases the boys through the potato field, his sluggish legs burning with the effort. Al and Paul dodge through a scratching gap in the hedge into forestland beyond. Anton follows, though the hedge tears at his coat and the backs of his hands. Too breathless to beg them to slow down, to stop and talk it out, he can only run, striving desperately to keep the frightened boys in view.

  The forest closes overhead, a deep-green canopy rustling with sound. Anton can no longer see the boys, nor can he hear them running. The trees are too dense; they offer too much cover for small, slender bodies and youthful feet. He halts in a small clearing, heaving for his breath, and stares around the wood. The boys must have gone to ground somewhere; otherwise, he would hear them running still, crashing through the underbrush. He may be aging, but he hasn’t yet gone deaf. Then he sees the little trail off to the right, new buds of a hazel broken off, the shoots of some small woodland flower crushed under hasty feet. He takes the trail.

  The forest path leads from one clearing to another—and in this one, he finds the boys’ lair, a childhood kingdom so fascinating it forces a reluctant grin of admiration. The forest floor has been swept clean of detritus, and a fire ring made of charred stones stands at the center of the clearing—Al’s doing, that meticulous preparation, the attention to safety. A great stump of some long-fallen tree has been hacked and hollowed and roofed by evergreen boughs, and its splintered gap of a doorway hung with a scrap of fabric, the same heavy dark-green wool Elisabeth uses for her curtains. Torn pieces of colored cloth and cutout magazine ads, faded by the elements and spotted with mildew, swing on lengths of twine that have been strung like a cobweb, this way and that, across the clearing. Anton wonders rather mischievously whether Elisabeth has noticed the disappearance of so many clothespins from her wash line.

  “I know you’re in there—in your fortress,” he calls. “Come on out, boys. I’m not angry. Not anymore.”

  There is a furtive shuffling inside the stump. He waits, patient but firm. After a moment, they appear, eyes on the ground as they scramble from the stump. They stand with heads bowed and kick their feet in the dirt, unwilling to meet his eye.

  Still breathing heavily, Anton sits on one of the logs near the fire pit. His knees crack as he does. Inside the fire ring, the earth is carpeted with dry ash and bits of charcoal. “Come here; sit with me. We need to have a talk.”

  “Are you angry?” Paul says, hanging back. The cautious note in his voice says he might take off running again if Anton answers, Yes.

  But Al scolds his brother: “He said he’s not. Don’t you ever listen?” Even so, shame and wariness narrow Albert’s eyes.

  “Sit down, boys. I won’t bite, I promise.”

  They sit, leaning elbows on their scraped knees, still turning their faces away.

  “Do you know what that thing was—that you were tossing back and forth?”

  “A grenade,” Al says at once.

  He stares at the boy, taken aback. If he hadn’t known, then perhaps Anton could have understood such foolishness and forgiven him. How did this boy—his thoughtful, cautious one—think it wise to play with a grenade? “Don’t you understand how dangerous it is? I expect better sense from you, Albert. Where on earth did you get that thing?”

  “One of the boys from our class found it in his grandfather’s fields, out near Stuttgart. He brought it back, and he told us where he hid it.”

  “We only wanted to see it up close,” Paul says.

  “Your friend brought it back from Stuttgart? It’s a wonder he didn’t get himself killed—his whole family, too.”

  “He showed it to his father, and his father said it’s dead. Disarmed.”

  Anton isn’t likely to trust the opinion of any old Unterboihingen man. These farmers and simple laborers—what do they know about weaponry? As for Anton, he has seen enough grenades in his lifetime, and more guns and bombs than he can bear to recall.

  “I’ll have to learn the best way to dispose of it safely.”

  “You can’t get rid of it,” Albert says, fists clenching at the injustice. “We were only playing. It couldn’t have hurt us.”

  “We never have any fun!” Paul wails on the verge of tears.

  “Do you call that fun, playing with a dangerous weapon? Would you think it fun to blow off a hand or a foot?”

  “No.” A sulky chorus.

  Al adds, “But it’s exciting, to play soldiers. We didn’t mean any harm. We only wanted some excitement.”

  There is nothing exciting about a soldier’s life. He wants to tell them the worst parts, the grueling, dull hours, numberless and blank—the way the nothingness grinds away your spirit and erodes your judgment, your humanity. Worse than the dullness are the times when you must see suffering close at hand—when you must cause it yourself, if you are unlucky. But Anton is wiser than to speak of it. His sons won’t listen; boys never listen to the grim lectures of older men, men who know better than they. If he wants to prove to his boys that there is a better way to be, something to aspire to beyond soldiering, he must take a different tack.

  “I admit,” he says, “life can get rather dull out here in the country.”

  They turn to look at him now, wary but willing to listen.

  “What do you suppose is the best part of being a soldier? What do you imagine they do, in the Wehrmacht?”

  “Running!” Paul says. “And climbing in and out of trenches.”

  Al adds, “And being brave, and doing things no one else can do.”

  He says thoughtfully,
“I suppose that does often come into it. I would know, having jumped from an airplane.”

  The boys are with him now, attuned to his words.

  “But you know, there are ways for boys like you to have a good time without bringing grenades into it. And there are ways for a fellow to find more fun than he can ever get from the Wehrmacht.”

  “How?” Paul squints at him, skeptical.

  “You might go fishing, now that the streams and ponds have thawed.”

  “We haven’t any fishing rods.”

  “I’ll show you how to make them. It’s simple, and you can dig up worms for bait around the Misthaufen. Muck heaps always make fat, juicy worms, the kind fish can’t resist. Or, if fishing isn’t to your liking, you might hunt.”

  “But we don’t have a rifle,” Al says. “Nobody can own one, unless you’re a soldier or a loyalist. You know that.”

  The boy speaks the truth. Anton well remembers the Weimar Republic with their registry of firearm owners. They started the registry when he was a young man, freshly ensconced in the Franciscan Order. It had seemed like a wise idea at the time; Anton, committed to the order’s peace, had even praised the registry. But it had run quickly out of hand, as do all things touched by the NSDAP. If all citizens had abided by the law—or if every citizen had broken it—we might not find ourselves here now, a people quivering in the sights of the Party’s confiscated arms. But in ’31, they used the registry to target and disarm the Jews, and in ’33 the constitution was suspended while the NSDAP scoured every home and business, cracking safes and slicing open mattresses, breaking down pantry doors. They took every firearm they found and revoked the legal license of every man and woman deemed not politically reliable. And by that time, what could a few rebels do—that ragged handful who refused to comply with the Weimar registries? Nothing but stand by and watch while their defenses were seized, their right to resist burned to the ground. What can one man do against an army bristling with guns? What can half a dozen do, or a hundred? Now, since 1938, it’s only avowed members of the National Socialists who may own private firearms. What might a thousand men do, or ten thousand, if they had the strength to match their adversaries?