by Anna Schmidt
Anja was well aware that for the next couple of hours they would follow an unmarked trail uphill through meadows and past streams and racing brooks. It was best to stay near water when they could. That way if the soldiers brought dogs to join in the search, they could step into the icy water and throw the dogs off their scent. As she trudged along, she chastised herself for her trivial concerns about Peter’s seemingly bad temper. They were covered in muck because they had been forced to crawl over the slippery terrain. He was simply tense as they all were. It had nothing to do with her. It had always amazed her how in the midst of the most incredible danger the mind could turn to the most routine facets of one’s life. She recalled how when she was imprisoned at Sobibor, the women had sometimes talked about how best to get a child through teething or about their dreams for after the war as they were sorting through clothing taken from prisoners who would not be returning to claim it. She thought about how she and Peter had danced with the snowman in the gardens in Paris. She thought about how her first thought on seeing him at the convent hospital ward was that she must look a mess.
Such insignificant drivel in the face of real danger and the likelihood that many of them would not survive the war. She was a grown woman—a mother and supposedly a leader in this movement to help Allied airmen escape. Yet here she was acting like a love-struck teenager trying to get the attention of the handsome boy in her class.
They walked on, their breath coming in audible gasps as the air grew thinner and the way ever more vertical. They had been climbing steadily with few stops to rest for some time when Anja took hold of Daniel’s hand and edged past Peter, leaving him to bring up the rear, as she fell into step behind Mikel.
“I can take the lead for a while,” she offered, knowing that setting the pace and deciding the best route on the unmarked trail was stressful and exhausting. “You need to conserve your strength. Once we reach the river …”
Mikel walked doggedly on without a word.
“Mikel, please. I can see that you are suffering and …”
He held up his hand for silence and paused before taking another step. He pointed to his left and then bent down to Daniel’s height and placed his finger on the boy’s lips, signaling the need for absolute quiet. He started to lift Daniel but could not swallow a grunt of pain. Peter stepped forward and picked Daniel up.
Mikel edged along an opening between the overgrown brush and trees. Not far away Anja heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps—at least two, perhaps more, people moving down the way toward them. Mikel motioned for her and Peter to hide, then started walking on, using his staff for support. After a few minutes, Anja heard him speaking in his native language, and not long after that, three men wearing the same blue coveralls and carrying large packs on their backs passed within a few feet of where she, Peter, and Daniel had taken cover. Without pausing, they continued on down the hillside.
“Smugglers,” she whispered to Peter. When he started to stand up, she held him back. “Wait for Mikel to signal. There could be more of them.”
Finally, she heard the call of a night bird and knew that it was Mikel. “Come on.” She led the way through the trees and emerged on a rocky ridge. Below them in the distance she could see the lights of the villages of Irun and San Sebastian. They had reached the southern flank of the hills and were facing Spain—freedom that was close enough to see but remained so very far away. They still had to follow the ridge to reach the place where it would be safest to descend to the river. Another two hours at least. Usually they made this part of the climb in the darkest part of the night, but they had lost hours hiding from the German patrol and rescuing Mikel. It would be daylight before they reached their destination.
“Those men,” Peter began, but Anja stopped him.
“No more talking. From here on just watch Mikel and me for signals.” She reached to take Daniel from him.
“I’ve got him,” he said.
“We’ll take turns. For now he can walk.”
“Shhh,” Daniel admonished Peter as he slipped from his arms and started following Anja across the rocky ridge. But he couldn’t resist adding, “Mama, those mountains are really high. Is there no other way?”
“Just keep your eyes on the ground and watch your step,” she told him. “One step at a time, and before you know it, we will reach the river.”
Another lie.
PART 3
SPAIN
MARCH 1944
The intensity
With which, already overwhelmed,
We longed in those days to be able
To walk together once again
Free beneath the sun.
—PRIMO LEVI, TRANS. RUTH FELDMAN AND BRIAN SWANN
CHAPTER 17
Peter was amazed at Anja’s stamina. He was far more worried about Mikel, who was obviously struggling. Mikel had looped the longest section of the rope that Pierre had used to restrain him and taken it with him when he and Peter made their escape. Now Peter began to see a purpose for that rope.
“Let’s take a break,” he said when they came to a piedmont area that they would need to cross to continue following the ridge. Daylight was just beginning to streak the eastern sky. He set Daniel down. He’d been carrying the boy for some time, and although the kid was waif thin, it was still a relief to be without the extra weight. The fact that for once neither Mikel nor Anja objected to his suggestion told him that they had been thinking along similar lines but were determined to keep pushing forward in a race against the coming dawn and the need to reach and cross the river. Not that they would be home free once they accomplished that. The Spaniards might not be officially in this war, but their government definitely tended to side with Hitler. And there was money to be made for capturing and turning people like them over to the Germans. Mikel had said that some locals would gladly trade any one of them for an extra loaf of bread.
Peter leaned against a boulder and took a long swallow of the water that was almost gone from the goatskin. “Let me see that rope,” he said.
Mikel gave him a look that as usual questioned whatever he might be thinking.
“Come on. Hand it over.”
Reluctantly, Mikel did as he asked. Peter handed him the goatskin in exchange. Mikel drank and passed it to Anja, who took no more than a sip before offering it to her son.
“Daniel, why don’t you refill that with water from that little brook over there,” he suggested as he uncoiled the rope, mentally measuring the length. It would do for his purposes. He tied one end into a loop and waited for Daniel to return with the filled goatskin, which he proudly presented to his mother. Peter slipped the rope over Daniel’s head and then tightened it around the boy’s waist. “Now you,” he said to Anja as he formed a second loop.
“You will get us all killed,” Mikel scoffed as he watched Peter fasten the rope around Anja’s waist, leaving a length between her and Daniel and another length before he formed the third loop that he offered Mikel. “I am not doing this,” Mikel protested. “Besides, you were to carry the boy through the most difficult parts.”
“And I will do that. That’s why he is on the end, so I can release him and carry him.”
“And where will you be?”
“I’ll take the lead.”
Mikel bristled, and then he laughed. “You? You have no idea where you are going.”
“That’s why you are going to be next to me so you can tell me.” He held up the third loop.
Mikel scowled at him, but at last, with obvious pain that he was having more and more trouble concealing, he stood and slipped it over his head, tightening it with a firm jerk at his waist. “Now what?”
Peter quickly formed the last loop and secured it around his waist. “Now we go.” He looked up to where the clouds hung low over the highest peaks. “Daniel, do you think you can make it to those clouds?”
Daniel hesitated. The clouds must have seemed miles away to the boy. “I can do it,” he replied firmly.
“You don’t have to,” Anja said. “I can carry you, and then—”
“I can do it, Mama.”
“Then let’s go,” Peter said and started up the trail that wound its way around boulders and across valleys, following the ridge. He could feel the drag of the others tugging at his waist as he walked on slowly but steadily. He couldn’t help thinking about his fellow crew members and Ian and Colin. He suspected that at least one of them had stayed behind to face the soldiers and give the rest a chance to make it to the woods. He also suspected that the person who had stayed had been Sam Levine.
After all, he was the one who had found the pistol, and he was also the one who had seemed the most affected and depressed by the experiences he’d suffered in the prison camp. When they were talking while eating the breakfast Pierre had prepared for them, Ian and Colin had spoken openly about how they were certain the invasion was coming soon and after that the war would be over in a matter of months if not weeks. But Sam had smirked at such idealistic chatter.
Peter thought about the shot he’d heard and realized that it had been a single gunshot followed by the sound of shots from a machine gun. Peter remembered how Eddie had joked in training that machine gun fire sounded like a woodpecker. How they had laughed at that image. In those days, they had been told that the men around them, going through training with them, were now their families. And if all the men in the unit were his family, then for sure the men on that plane with him had been his brothers. He would miss his crew—he already did.
“Peter!”
He looked back at Anja’s hissed call and saw that Mikel was gasping for air. He found a level space sheltered by an outcropping of rocks and pulled each of the others up to it. While Peter helped Mikel to a sitting position Anja gathered a handful of snow from a ledge. “Here, take this and let it melt slowly in your mouth.”
“There … is … a … monastery,” Mikel gasped. “Not far … Leave …”
“I’ll go,” Peter said, pulling out the rough map that Mikel had surrendered to him when he insisted on taking the lead. “Point me in the right direction.”
Mikel placed his forefinger on a spot and then indicated that this marked where they were. Then he ran his finger across about an inch of the paper and tapped it.
“Got it,” Peter said as he memorized the path and then folded the map and tucked it back inside Mikel’s jacket. “You stay here and rest and keep drinking that snow.”
“I can fill the goatskin again,” Daniel volunteered. But his face fell as he realized this time there was no stream conveniently nearby. Then he brightened. “I can fill it with snow. It will take some time, but I can do it.”
“Just stay here with your Mom and Mikel, okay, pal?” Peter gripped the boy’s shoulder then touched Anja’s arm. “I won’t be long,” he promised.
“Go. We’ll be all right.”
Knowing that the conversion of an inch on the map to miles on the actual path was guesswork at best and that the ground to be covered was not flat as it appeared on the paper, Peter set out to find the monastery. Along the way, he fortified himself by taking a handful of snow and stuffing it in his mouth. In spite of Anja’s constant reminders for them to drink water, he suspected that all of them were seriously dehydrated, and the high altitude wasn’t helping. So when he looked up as he edged his way past a bulging boulder along a narrow path that dropped off into a valley several hundred feet below, he was sure that he had begun to hallucinate.
Standing just beyond the huge rock was a figure in a long monk’s robe that was tied at the waist with a hemp rope. The person’s face was totally obscured by a hood, and he was wearing sandals. But when the man held out his hand to Peter, it looked real enough, and Peter took it gratefully.
He started to explain about Mikel and the others. The monk did not speak but nodded and in silence showed Peter another, easier way to retrace his steps back to where he’d left them. When they arrived, Mikel looked a lot worse than he had when Peter left them, but he smiled at the monk.
“Brother Francisco,” he murmured and then turned on his side and retched.
“He’s been vomiting up the water,” Anja explained.
Without a word, the monk, who was short and stocky but obviously every bit as strong as Mikel in his prime, lifted Mikel in his arms and motioned for Peter, Anja, and Daniel to follow him. Peter lifted Daniel as they followed the man without question. In silence but with the surefootedness of a mountain goat, he made his way over the rocky terrain and around a bend until they saw a rundown stone structure built into the side of the mountain. To reach it they had to cross an open area where hundreds of sheep were grazing on yellow broom grass and other spring flowers.
“It’s like a picture in that book you read me, Mama,” Peter whispered. “But it’s real.”
“Yes, it is, and isn’t it beautiful?”
“It’s just like the nuns used to describe heaven,” Daniel continued. “Except there is no lion.”
“Why would there be a lion, Daniel?” Anja asked.
“Because the nuns said that in heaven the lion would lie down with the lambs and everybody would get along and there would be no more fighting.”
Peter saw Anja’s eyes fill with tears, and he wrapped his free arm around her. “Out of the mouths of babes …”
Inside the monastery, the monk carried Mikel to a cell-like but pristine room and laid him gently on a narrow cot then left the room without a word. But a moment later, he reappeared, this time with another monk carrying several pillows, which the two of them placed behind Mikel’s head and back, leaving him in a half-sitting position.
“Yes,” Anja said. “Better for his breathing. Thank you.”
The two monks folded their hands in front of them and stood by the door as if waiting for direction. Anja seemed to understand the situation a lot better than Peter did. “If it would not be too much trouble,” she said, “could we have some hot water and perhaps an extra blanket or two?”
The men left the room and returned moments later with a cart set with cups, spoons, a pot of hot water, and another of hot broth. They also brought a stack of blankets and covered Mikel with two of them then wrapped one around Anja’s thin shoulders. Somewhere from the depths of the thick-walled building a bell tolled. The monks opened the door and gestured for Peter and Daniel to come with them.
Daniel glanced at his mother, who nodded before he agreed to follow the monks. Peter was more reluctant to leave her.
“Go,” she said. “They want you and Daniel to join them for their midday meal. And Daniel? It is like our meeting for worship—you must not talk.”
The boy grinned and made the gesture of locking his lips and tossing her the key then followed the monks down the narrow corridor.
“That goes for you as well, Peter Trent,” she added and gave him a weary smile before turning her attention back to Mikel.
“Take some of that broth for yourself,” he told her. “We’ve come this far, and I do not intend for us to fail to make it the rest of the way.”
“Stop giving orders and go eat,” she murmured, but he could see that she was smiling and that the reprieve of being in the monastery had already done wonders to smooth out the worried lines that had etched her mouth and forehead ever since they escaped from the farmhouse.
“We won’t be long,” he promised and hurried to catch up to Daniel and the monks.
Anja felt as if one of the large rocks they had scaled had been lifted from her chest when they reached the shelter of the monastery. Mikel had told her about this order of monks who lived their lives in total silence except for the chanting of prayers several times a day when they gathered for worship. She had immediately seen the similarities between their form of worship and the silence maintained by Quakers in worship. That had made her remember something that her late husband, Benjamin, had once told her as the Nazis continued to escalate their persecution of the Jews: Governments are always starting wars in the name of politics, but the
foundation of their disagreement always lies in what and how to believe. “Our way is right and yours is wrong. Believe as I do or pay the consequences.” Yet at the root of every major religion is the idea of one God—omnipotent and singular. The debate arises out of how one communicates with God.
She thought about the political cartoons she had seen portraying Jews with horns as if they were the devil. And she thought about something she had once heard Lisbeth tell Josef when he had objected to her endangering herself in order to help Anja and Benjamin and the children reach safety. “We are all God’s children,” she had said. Reverend Mother had said the same thing.
Outside the thick wooden door, she heard the sound of footsteps, and a moment later Daniel, Peter, and one of the monks entered the room. Daniel presented her with a bowl of boiled grain that looked like oatmeal.
“Why thank—”
He frowned and touched her arm and shook his head. Apparently he had decided to take the vow of silence and expected them all to follow suit. She placed her finger to her lips to show that she understood and took a bite. She made an expression of delight, and Daniel grinned. And she thought how wonderful it was to see that mischievous twinkle that had been dulled by fear and exhaustion come back to her son’s dark eyes.
All through the rest of the day, she sat with Mikel, watching over him as he slept and trying to get him to eat some of the warm soup when he roused. Peter sat with Daniel on the floor of the small room. Peter had asked if by any chance the monks might have a bar of soap, and minutes later one of them returned with a large bar of laundry soap. Peter started showing Daniel how to carve an animal—a mountain goat as Daniel had requested. She saw how careful Peter was to make sure that he saved all of the shavings so that they could be pressed into a ball and not wasted.