The Ragged Edge of Night

by Olivia Hawker

  It’s the last thing Anton wants, to be among sunshine and blooming flowers when he knows he has failed. He has drawn the eye of the enemy to his sanctuary, and now it all must end. He thinks, If I hear the laughter of my children now, my heart will break; my mind will turn itself inside out; I will become a ghost where I stand. But Elisabeth pulls him to his feet and leads him toward the door. He can’t let go of her hand, and so Anton follows.

  They walk in silence down the lane, past the orchard full of breezes and whispers. There is a fresh smell in the sky, a crisp blue scent of rain to come. From the pasture behind the cottage, he can hear the milk cow lowing. In the distance, as if in lazy reply, the bells of St. Kolumban ring the hour.

  Elisabeth stops. She turns toward the sound, listening to the bells chime with her face to the easy wind. The notes roll fat across the land, golden and round. Anton watches her, that resolute face softening with pleasure, softening so fractionally he could miss the change if he weren’t her husband, if he didn’t love her beyond reason or life. As the bells die away, leaving only their echo behind, Anton thinks he should speak—apologize, perhaps, or make some excuse as to why he can’t stop, why he must fight on. But Elisabeth speaks before he can.

  “I met Paul when I was very young. I had just moved out of my parents’ home; I was only seventeen. I took a job as a maid, at one of those grand old castles—Lichtenstein.” She smiles and lowers her face for a moment, sheepish at the memory. “I thought it would be romantic to work in a castle, silly girl that I was. But the work was very hard; I cleaned day and night for the owners, forever on my feet, and all of us—the maids, I mean—were expected to be on our best behavior. Even when we weren’t at the castle, when we came and went on the trains, we were required to look flawless and modest, and behave with perfect obedience and charm. The strain was enough to drive a girl mad.

  “Paul was a botanist, fresh out of university. He’d been hired that summer to tend the gardens at Lichtenstein. It was his first job, too. He had seen me across the grounds and—” She laughs, suddenly shy, and tucks a stray curl behind her ear. “I suppose he liked me when he first saw me, though I still can’t think why. There were prettier girls on the payroll. I knew I was nothing special.

  “One day, I went into a servants’ passage to clean it—you know, one of those dark, narrow ways between the walls. They always made me think of a mouse’s burrow; I shivered every time I had to enter one. But there was Paul when I opened the door. He’d been coming from the other direction, with his gardening tools in a bucket and dirt all over the knees of his trousers. He dropped his bucket when he saw me standing there in my prim little uniform, with my dusting rag in my hand.” She laughs softly. “I’ll never forget the sound his bucket made. I thought we would both be in trouble for it. But no one came to see about the noise. We were entirely alone.

  “Paul said some sweet words to me—I can’t remember now just what he said—and my heart was captured. I was sure I’d never seen a man so fine in all my life. From that moment on, I did everything in my power just to catch a glimpse of him. I must have washed every window in that castle ten times a day, merely for the excuse to look down and find him in the garden below, digging in the soil.

  “It didn’t take us long to realize we could meet in the servants’ passage. We had absolute privacy there, as long as we were careful to whisper. And we did meet there, almost as often as we liked. But we never did anything sinful. It was all holding hands and gazing into one another’s eyes—just the sort of things a foolish girl of seventeen dreams of doing in a romantic old castle.

  “It looked terrible, of course, to meet in secrecy. I can see that now, as a grown woman—but neither Paul nor I understood it then. We were in love; that was the only thing that concerned us. But when our employer realized what we were doing, he sent me back to my parents with a scorching letter in my pocket. I was meant to give the letter to my father, so he could read all about my low morals and punish me for it. I didn’t know what to do. Of course, I planned to burn that letter before my parents could see it, but even without the note, I would be obliged to explain why I’d been sent away from my work, and I didn’t know whether my parents would really believe I’d done nothing wrong.

  “I was on the train, heading home with tears in my eyes—absolutely certain I would never see Paul again—when I realized he had boarded the very same train. He came down the aisle of my car, looking for me, calling my name. I remember he even lifted one man’s hat, as if he thought I might have hidden beneath it. I jumped to my feet; I’m afraid I jostled everyone around me terribly, but I didn’t notice at the time. When Paul saw me, he said nothing more, but he pushed his way to my side, and I kissed him, right there in front of everyone. I didn’t care one bit who saw or what they thought of us. I was done caring what other people thought. All that mattered was that Paul and I were together.

  “Paul took the letter and tore it up, right there in the aisle of the train car. He threw it out the window. I’ll never forget the sight of those bits of paper fluttering away in the wind as the train left the station. He said, ‘There’s no shame in anything we’ve done. We can’t let that sour old Herr push us around.’

  “I told him, ‘I can’t go back to my parents. Even without the letter, they’ll know I was dismissed, and they’ll soon guess why. My reputation is ruined.’ And Paul said, ‘Then don’t go home. Marry me instead.’”

  She pauses. Still holding Anton’s arm, she stoops toward the tall grasses and picks a simple blue flower. She twirls the stem in her fingers; the flower spins.

  “We did marry. That same evening, in fact, as soon as the train stopped at Stuttgart. We scarcely had two coins to rub together, but with each other, we felt we were more than blessed. Those were some of the happiest times in my life, though we were so very poor. We made do with what we had and never felt we lacked the finer things in life. What does one need, beyond love?

  “Soon enough, Albert came along, and little Paul not long after. We moved here to Unterboihingen when Paul was a baby, just before Maria was born, because of his allergies. He couldn’t take the city air, the poor little mite—he used to cough all night until he was too weak to cry. I feared if we didn’t get him out of the city, he would die—and once we arrived in Unterboihingen, he began sleeping through the night again. He thrived. We all thrived here, in fact, though I’d been sure I could never come to love country life—not truly. In a farming community, there was always plenty of work for Paul; he improved many of the farmers’ holdings, with his knowledge of plants and the earth.

  “But then, shortly after Maria was born, it all fell apart. Paul cut himself—such a simple thing. The cut wasn’t deep, but the wound festered. And then . . . he was gone, almost before I could realize that his death was a possibility.

  “I look back on the time I spent with him, and it seems a miracle. I knew things weren’t right with the nation—beyond the boundaries of our private happiness, I was aware the world was falling under some dark shadow. But I still felt safe, secure, for I had my husband, and I thought, ‘God will soon set everything right. He won’t allow evil to go unpunished.’ I had my little family—what could truly go wrong? I would give anything to go back to those times.”

  She turns to him, eyes brimming with a sudden, forceful passion. “Do you think me terrible? Because I—”

  “Because you still love Paul? No.” Anton brushes her cheek, tucks the stray curl behind her ear before she can reach for it. “He sounds like a wonderful man. If I’d known him, I think I would have loved him, too. Your devotion does you credit.”

  “I wonder, when I get to Heaven someday, will I be his wife, or yours?”

  Anton doesn’t ask which she would prefer.

  “I understand,” Elisabeth says. She bends the stem of her flower, crushing it in her fingers, and the scent of green sap rises between them. “I understand why you’re doing it. What you said about the children you taught—I understand why you can�
��t leave the Party alone. God knows, none of us should leave them in peace. None of us should allow them to work this evil without any resistance. But it’s all I can manage, to care for my children. To see that my children survive.” She pauses and closes her eyes. In the silence, a dove calls from the trees overhead, nasal and lazy in the August heat. “I think, sometimes—sometimes, I am sure—that God will punish me. For not doing more. We are meant to care for our neighbors as if they’re our brothers and sisters, aren’t we? What kind of a Christian am I, if I turn my back on the persecuted? But unless I turn my back and look to my own home, my babies will suffer. I can’t, Anton—I can’t do better than I’m doing now. God will damn me for it, but at least my children will survive.”

  There is only so much one person may give before it exhausts your shallow well of courage and leaves you damned and dry. Before outrage becomes commonplace, and you grow used to the horrors of this life. They count on it, the Nazis—and other villains, too. Mussolini in Italy and Baky in Hungary, Ion Antonescu, purging the streets of Old Romania—and those who, in some future time when civilized people think themselves beyond the reach of moral failings, may rise to stand on foreign soil. They want you tired and distracted. They plan to burn this world down—our old ways of being. From the ashes they will build the world anew, after a fearful pattern, after their own bleak design. But the flames can only devour what we leave unguarded. So they will force you inward, if they can, to huddle over whatever small treasures the Lord has given you. When your back is turned, that’s when they’ll strike the match.

  “God will not damn you,” Anton says. “You gave up your bed to refugees. You taught your children right from wrong. You stood by your husband, when you knew the extent of it—what I’ve tangled myself in, the dangers I’ve exposed us all to.”

  “About that.” Elisabeth opens her eyes. Unclouded now by fear or regret, they skewer him in his place. “I don’t know how much longer I can take it.”

  “Let me do the work you can’t do. Let me fight, let me resist, when you cannot.”

  “You endanger my children by doing it—our children, Anton.”

  “The last thing I want is to harm our children.”

  “Then you must stop. You must. No more carrying messages, or whatever it is you do. No more visits to other towns. Möbelbauer isn’t stupid. He sees the way you come and go; he must see it. How long until he realizes—?” A thought comes to her, too terrible to speak aloud, though this can’t be the first time it has haunted her. She presses the tips of her fingers against her mouth. What if Möbelbauer has already realized?

  “I can’t stop now. We’re so close, Elisabeth—so close! Everything is in place now. We’re positioned to act.”

  “Act?” The word rises on a panicked note.

  He is quick to reassure her. “Not me personally. I’ve done my part already. But he’ll be gone soon. Dead.” The Führer.

  Elisabeth flinches away, recoiling from his touch, as if the suggestion is one only a madman could have made. They have ground her down so thoroughly that she can’t imagine Germany without Hitler; she no longer remembers this world without war. This is how they succeed, one person at a time: one frightened mother beaten down, too exhausted to resist. And then another, and another.

  “It’s true,” Anton says. Now, at last, he knows his wife well enough to trust her. He tells her the secret, quietly, standing so close his voice never carries beyond the rustle of the oak leaves. “We’ve finally got a man on the inside. Not one of the kitchen workers but someone with reliable access. It will be poison. On his food, or in his tea.” You can’t do it any other way. No one owns a pistol anymore—the NSDAP were quick to excise that right back in 1938. A bomb would better express the rage, the pent-up fury that pounds in our heads day after day. A length of black pipe, not much longer than a human heart, filled with jagged things like fear and nails, shards of glass and desperation, capped on either end by the hopelessness of forced silence. But there is the problem of access, now that the July attempt has failed. The Führer surrounds himself with loyalists. Like drones around a queen bee, they circle him in a tight orbit, each one ready with his sting. Anything to shield the pulsing, breeding thing at the heart of the hive. We will only have one chance to strike, so we must not miss our target. “It’s a slow-acting poison, so the ones who taste his food won’t know until it’s too late.”

  “Are you sure? Is this real?”

  “I’m as sure as I can be.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know the date; I wasn’t told. But now that we are poised—”

  “Because I don’t know how much longer I can stay, Anton. It’s too much for me to bear, knowing the risks you run, and what they’ll do to you if you’re found out.”

  It’s the first suggestion, the first faint intimation Elisabeth has ever made, that he matters so much—that she can’t picture life now without him. She hides her eyes behind her hand and turns away.

  To spare her the embarrassment—a raw emotion, suddenly exposed—Anton says, “And the danger to you and the children, of course. If I were caught, they would try to apprehend you, too.” They would try. They would succeed.

  “Yes,” she says, briskly, glad for the rescue. “That’s my point exactly. We can’t risk the children any longer.”

  “Well, it won’t be much longer now. My part is done, and the plan is in motion. Any day now, we’ll read it in the newspapers: The Führer choked to death on his turnip stew.” With the fist of Anton Starzmann locked around his straining, crushable throat.

  “Promise me,” Elisabeth says, “promise me you won’t do any more. Nothing else to raise suspicion, or give them any cause to . . .”

  “I won’t.”

  “Swear it, Anton. Make me believe it’s really over, and I can feel some hope for peace.”

  “I promise you, I won’t cross the Party again. We’ll lie low, all of us, until we hear the news.” He takes the broken flower from her hand and tucks it in her hair, just above her ear. “It’s nearly over now, Elisabeth. We’ve almost won.”

  32

  Practice day. The children are lined up in smart rows on the street outside St. Kolumban. They’re holding their instruments before them; they’re standing at eager attention. Anton promised his band that if they rehearsed their parts well, they could play at the equinox, parading down Unterboihingen’s main street in their first public display. Now they await their conductor’s cue with military poise. It’s remarkable how still and attentive children can be when they have good enough reason for it.

  He raises his baton. The horns snap up, ready. He counts them down, and in perfect unison, they begin to play.

  The piece is “Schön ist die Nacht,” a popular and rather sentimental tune. He allowed the children to choose their song; he suspects it must be a favorite of one of the village girls, the sweetheart of some teenage musician—Denis, perhaps, who is big and broad enough to carry the baritone without fatigue, or Erik, trombone, with his roving eye and mischievous smile.

  A few students approached him rather tentatively, suggesting something from Duke Ellington or Cab Calloway. Anton had been quick to stamp out the idea. Jazz has been strictly outlawed since 1938. It is fremdländisch—foreigners’ music, reeking of American filth and British impurity. We must give every appearance of being good and loyal Germans—outwardly, at least.

  “Where have you heard Ellington and Calloway?” he asked his students, then quickly cut them off with a shake of his head. “Never mind; I don’t want to know if you’ve gone and joined the Swing Youth. No, the band must play something solidly German, from a German composer. Nothing else will do.”

  “Schön ist die Nacht” has a simple, square, four-four time. It’s slow enough that beginners can march to the tune, so once his students showed some enthusiasm for the safely German piece, Anton agreed they could play it.

  “And now to march,” Anton calls, keeping time in the air with his white baton. “Lef
t, and left, and left—”

  The band shuffles forward, their first fledgling attempt at marching. This is not a skill that comes to anyone overnight. It’s far harder than it looks, to step in time while you play, and more difficult still to coordinate your movements with the fellow beside you. Anton leads the band from the church toward the town square. He can hear the occasional clash of one horn colliding with another, and now and then, a sour note as the children lose their place in the music. But they are trying; practice brings perfection.

  “Schön ist die Nacht” finishes just as the band arrives at the square. A few villagers have stepped from their shops and houses to applaud the effort, to cheer the band on. Someone shouts from a balcony, “Bravo!” and one of the Kopp brothers hoots wordless approval from his truck, idling in a narrow lane.

  The children shift on their feet and mutter to one another, both embarrassed and thrilled by their grand foray into the public sphere. “Well done,” Anton tells them, but even as he says it, he can feel a sly prickle between his shoulders.

  He turns. There is Möbelbauer, lounging against the door of his shop. Two men linger beside him: Hofer and Janz. They’d been among Möbelbauer’s supporters months ago when the gauleiter shouted down the Egerlander boys.

  Anton makes a note of their presence now—the loyalists creep from the woodpile day by day, emerging from beneath their hidden stones, emboldened to wear their hate proudly and openly, even here in Unterboihingen. But he only nods at them, a pleasant greeting.

  Möbelbauer grunts in reply.

  “What do you think?” Anton says.

  Möbelbauer stands up straight. He tugs at his lapels, certain of his own importance, and swaggers out into the square. “You want to know what I think? I’ll tell you. I was just standing there, wondering when you plan on teaching these youngsters some real German music.”

  “‘Schön is die Nacht’ is German.”

  Möbelbauer spits into the dust. “It’s modern trash—practically jazz. You should be ashamed of infecting our youth with such filth, Herr Starzmann.”