“Helmut, Margarete,” I said, setting down my glass. “Thank you for all that you have done for me, but it is time for me to leave.”
“You are welcome to stay here,” she said.
Her words were not a surprise. I had sensed that she enjoyed having a bit more company. “I’m putting you both in danger.”
“But this is the worst time of year to travel,” said Margarete. “It rains nearly every day. Soon it will be December. To be travelling in the snow is almost as difficult. How can you hide? How can you stay warm?”
“And where would you go?” asked Helmut.
“To the mountains.”
Helmut blinked in surprise. “Do you even know where you are?” he asked.
“Somewhere in Germany …” I thought of the atlas on the bookshelf in Martin’s bedroom. “Just a minute …”
I retrieved the atlas from the bedroom and flipped it open to a page I had studied so many times.
“Can you show me where we are?” I asked.
Helmut got up from his chair and stood beside me. He rested one hand on my shoulder and frowned as he examined the page. “Where do you think we are?”
One German city I recognized was München — Munich. I put my finger on it. “Are we close to here?”
“No.” Helmut placed his finger on a spot that was on the other side of Czechoslovakia. “We are in a rural area close to Breslau.”
“But the atlas says Wroclaw, and it’s in Poland, not Germany.”
“It’s part of the Reich now. The name was changed.”
“But all the people around here are German, not Polish. And the signs — everything is German.”
Helmut stared at me in surprise. “I told you — Margarete and I are not from around here.”
I nodded. But I still didn’t really understand.
“When Hitler and Stalin were on the same side between 1939 and 1941,” said Helmut, “they carved up Poland between them. Hitler wanted Germans in his part of Poland and Stalin wanted Slavs. People were moved. Hundreds of thousands of us. On both sides.”
“And without any warning either,” said Margarete. “They shipped out all of the Germans in our town. We were sent to a holding camp to be evacuated — and we were the lucky ones. Some were shipped to labour camps. Some went to Germany. Our family was sent here.”
“What about the people who were here before?”
“The Poles? They were taken away. We replaced them.”
Helmut nodded. “We got to this house, and there was still food on the table. Children’s clothing was scattered on the floor in Martin’s bedroom.”
“What happened to them? The Polish families?” I asked.
Margarete looked away. “They were sent to the Soviet Union.”
A flash of memory — That grave in the forest overflowing with corpses. A bit of paper written in Polish script fluttering out of a dead woman’s coat … I knew what might have happened to the families. They certainly weren’t given the newly-vacated German homes.
“Those mountains in the distance,” I said. “Are those linked to the Carpathians?”
Helmut slowly turned the pages of the atlas. “This map shows it better.”
He angled the book so I could see the map more easily. “Here we are, and here are those mountains.” He pointed to a hook-shaped cluster of mountains farther south and east. “The ones we see in the distance — to the southeast? They’re on the western edge of the Carpathians.”
“I need to get there,” I said.
“But they’re hundreds of kilometres away,” said Margarete.
“And you’d be hunted down long before you got there,” Helmut added.
“I need to try.”
“Stay here until the spring,” said Helmut. “The weather will be kinder. You’ll be stronger.”
They looked at me in silence. The clock above the mantle ticked.
Then a car horn blared outside and Margarete jumped up so quickly her chair toppled over. “Martin! Home for a visit.” She ran over and pushed me towards the pantry. “Hide!”
Chapter Eight
Martin
The pantry door closed, plunging me into darkness. I stood, not daring to breathe. Sounds trickled through — a chair set upright, tea splashed into the sink, the squeak of the kitchen door, the rustling of a paper bag.
A man’s voice said, “Mutti, Vati, it’s so good to see you. This is for you.”
That voice. It sounded so familiar. Where …? No, it couldn’t be …!
I knew I was taking a risk, but I opened the pantry door just a crack to see if I was right.
My heart stopped. Standing there with a paper bag in one hand, hugging Margarete and Helmut, was Officer Schmidt from my labour camp! Strutting, power-hungry Officer Schmidt. This man was their son Martin?
I sneaked the door closed. If Officer Schmidt saw me here he’d shoot me on the spot. I was plunged once more into darkness.
My knees felt weak and I grabbed a shelf. All these days that I had been fattening myself up and letting my wounds heal, I had been sleeping in the bed of a monster. This same man had selected young children in our camp to be killed, others to be worked to death. And he had seemed to enjoy it. How could gentle people like Margarete and Helmut have given birth to someone like him?
If he caught me, he would shoot me. At least Margarete and Helmut would not be in danger — not from their own son. Would they? I lowered myself to the floor of the pantry. Using my hands to gauge what was around me, I cleared a spot in the back corner and shuffled into it. I pulled a burlap sack of rice in front of myself.
The pantry door was still open a crack, so even from my hiding spot in the back, I could hear the conversation.
“Sit down, son,” said Helmut, in a voice that to me sounded falsely hearty. “Mutti and I were just having a glass of tea. Would you like some too?”
“I’ve brought you some freshly baked cherry buns,” said Martin. There was the rustle of a bag being ripped open. “What about some of that cherry vodka I brought you last time? The two would go together nicely.”
“I’ll get it,” said Helmut.
Suddenly the pantry filled with light. Helmut walked in and grabbed a bottle from a high shelf at the front. His face looked pale and tense, but when he caught my eye and saw me somewhat hidden, his shoulders relaxed. He backed out and I was plunged again into darkness.
Cupboards squeaked open and glasses tinkled. Chairs scraped along the floor. I figured they were all sitting around the table, sipping on vodka and nibbling fresh buns.
“Will you be staying the night?” Margarete asked.
“I must get back to the camp. I was just on my way back from town and had a moment to drive by. We’ve had some problems.”
“Problems?”
“The munitions factory was bombed — a few weeks back. A lot of our labourers were there. Many killed. Many more wounded. That’s not the bad part — such things happen in war. But one escaped from the hospital, and that’s given the other prisoners ideas.”
“I am sure it will blow over,” said Margarete.
“I hope so, Mutti,” Martin replied. “But I can’t be gone too long.”
There was the sound of a long sip and then the clatter of a glass being put down on the table with a bit too much force. “To make matters worse, we’re getting new shipments every day. The Soviets are closing in and the eastern camps are being evacuated. We’re getting their prisoners.”
“Then you have more help in the munitions plant,” said Helmut.
“These new ones are worthless,” said Martin. “They’re starved to the point of death. I can’t use them.”
I clenched my fists. These were living, breathing humans he was talking about.
The sound of liquid tinkling into a glass. “You’ve got my old atlas out,” said Officer Schmidt. “What a relic that is.”
“Yes,” said Margarete. “We were just saying the same to each other. The Reich has certainly expanded.”
“I wish it were still expanding,” said Officer Schmidt. “These are darker days. Any letters from Claus?”
“No,” said Helmut. “We’re worried. Have you heard anything?”
“Not directly,” said Officer Schmidt. “But I’ve had word that the Soviets recaptured Kyiv just a few days ago.”
“Was there much to recapture?” asked Helmut.
Helmut was probably being wily, asking this question for me.
“Next to nothing. We succeeded in starving out the city before it was recaptured.”
I felt like punching something. Kyiv destroyed, and here I was, hiding out in the enemy’s house. I had to get out of here. I had to fight. Exactly how or what, I had no idea.
Martin stayed and drank and talked for a while longer. It was getting so late that I was sure he would decide to stay over, but then his chair scraped back on the kitchen floor.
“I need to be going,” he said. “It’s been so good to visit with you, Mutti, Vati.”
The sound of squeaking hinges, then the pantry doors shook slightly from a gust of wind. Grunts of exertion and heavy footsteps, then a large object being dragged across the floor.
“Do you want me to put these things into the pantry for you before I go?” Martin asked.
I held my breath.
“No,” said Margarete. I caught the nervous catch in her voice. I hoped Officer Schmidt would not. “You must be on your way. And I need to sort it all out before I put it away.”
Moments after Officer Schmidt left, light flooded into the pantry. I got to my feet. A bag sat in the middle of the table, cherry buns spilling out of it.
On the floor between the pantry and the table was a large burlap sack. I was still trying to digest the fact that Officer Schmidt had been mere inches away from me.
“I want to leave right now.”
“Sit down and listen to us,” said Margarete.
I slumped down in the chair. Why hadn’t they told me who their son was?
“We haven’t seen Martin for a while,” said Helmut. “We are not on good terms.”
“You seemed on good terms to me.”
Margarete went into another room, coming back moments later with a photo album. She set it in front of me and opened it to one of the more recent pages. “This is a picture of our two sons,” she said. “While they were still innocent.”
I recognized Martin immediately. His shoulders were thrown back and his head held high. In contrast, Claus had an easy smile.
“Martin had no choice, really,” said Margarete. “We had to prove our loyalty to the Reich. Claus enlisted right away. Martin didn’t want to. The SS came for him and gave him a choice: work with them or send us to the work camp.”
“Sadly, he became good at his new job,” added Helmut bitterly. “We cannot believe how much he has changed. They promoted him quickly.”
Margarete took a deep breath. “He brought us forced workers. We told him we wouldn’t take people who are treated like slaves. We’re not barbarians. But he said we had to take them, or our loyalty would be questioned.”
“His loyalty too,” said Helmut.
“So we took six,” said Margarete.
“And they all escaped,” said Helmut.
“He got into trouble,” said Helmut. “And that changed him.”
I had to think carefully of what to say next. “Thank you for protecting me, for saving my life. But now I need to leave. To get to the mountains. Can you help me?”
Helmut got up from the table and came back with a pencil and paper. I watched as he sketched a map, added Xs all over one area, then roads, railway tracks, a river, woods, the beginning of mountains.
“We’re here,” he said, resting the tip of his pencil on one corner of the paper that was covered with Xs and was far away from the mountains. “This part” — his index finger swept over the area of road and railway — “is very dangerous for you. We need to get you past all of this and to the forested areas along the Oder River.”
Margarete nodded. “We’ve done it before. If you follow the Oder River south, you’ll get to the foothills of the mountains.”
“But you must be careful,” said Helmut. “Specially trained soldiers patrol the forested areas, looking for people like you. And the Oder River is used for military transport, so you’ll need to stay hidden.”
I knew it would be dangerous, but I was eager to start the journey. “When can you take me?”
“Tomorrow morning, first thing. That would be best,” said Margarete.
“Thank you,” I said again. These two had been so kind and now they were risking their lives for me — a stranger who had tried to steal from them.
Margarete got up from the table and walked over to the burlap bag that Martin had left. “Maybe it was good that our son visited us after all,” she said. “I’m sure something in here will come in handy for you.”
Chapter Nine
Obersturmbannführer Pfaff
I went to bed, but could not sleep. Now that I knew Officer Schmidt had slept in these sheets, I felt the weight of them like chains.
I closed my eyes.
An image of Lida appears, her eyes wide with terror. It’s the same expression as when we first met. She was the last captured child to be thrown into the back of our truck heading for a slave-labour camp in the Reich. Most of the children weep with fear, but not Lida. Instead, she does her best to calm the others and to give us all hope: she gets us to sing. That’s what I love the most about Lida — this gift she has of finding goodness in even the worst situations.
I pulled the covers up to my chin and tried to get some sleep, but the memory of Lida would not leave me alone. Now she appeared as I had last seen her on the day before I escaped. She’d sneaked into my hospital room and woken me up. “I want you out of this place,” she’d whispered fiercely. Without her blessing, I would never have escaped. What had she known that I didn’t?
I covered my face with my hands and tried to banish all thoughts. I had to be rested for tomorrow. I fell into an uneasy sleep.
A light tapping startled me awake. Margarete opened the bedroom door and the brightness of the electric light in the hallway made me squint. She held a dress.
“Get washed up and put these on,” she said. “I’ve packed some food. We’ll eat in the wagon.”
“Should I put this on over my other clothes?”
“No. It would be too bulky. I’ll pack up your regular clothing.” Margarete’s eyes lit up and she smiled. “In that sack that Martin brought, there were ten American army rations — small boxed meals. I’ve packed them all for you.”
“Thank you.”
Margarete grabbed me in a hug. “Stay safe,” she whispered. “I could never forgive myself if something happened to you.”
I closed my eyes, and for a moment it was almost like hugging Mama …
She reaches out for me that one last time, “May your wits keep you safe, my son,” she cries. And then a Nazi soldier smashes her head with a club and she tumbles to the ground. He picks her up like a rag doll and throws her into the boxcar.
I pulled loose from Margarete and took a deep breath. She left without another word.
What I thought was a dress was actually two pieces. I pulled on the skirt part and tried doing up the blouse, but the buttons were on the wrong side. Didn’t that bother girls? As I walked into the bathroom, the skirt material got caught around my legs.
I looked at myself in the mirror. Putting on a skirt and a blouse did not make me look like a girl. It made me look like a boy in a skirt.
“Can I come in?” said Margarete through the bathroom door.
I opened it. “This isn’t going to fool anyone.”
She looked at me and stifled a laugh. Anger surged up inside me. The skirt was embarrassing enough, but she didn’t have to laugh. A good disguise could be a matter of life and death.
She pulled a kerchief out of her pocket. “Face the mirror,” she said. “I’ve g
ot to get this right.”
I watched as she folded the cloth sideways to make a large triangle and then put it on my head. She pulled it tightly from the back, then tied all three corners of the kerchief together.
She drew a small cotton bundle from her pocket. Unwrapping a corner, she showed me — one of last night’s cherry buns. She closed the cloth over the bun, then tucked it inside the back of my kerchief until it was snug against the nape of my neck, like long hair coiled up under the kerchief.
I stared in the mirror. The person looking out was no longer me. The image was eerily like my own mother.
“Take small steps. I think we can pass you off as a farm girl.”
When we got outside, it was still dark. Helmut had strapped Blitz into her harness and the wagon was filled with sacks of turnip.
“Normally we’d be making a delivery sometime this week,” he said as he took Margarete’s hand and helped her up to the wooden bench at the front of the wagon. “Get up on the other side, Luka.”
I hoisted myself up and sat beside Margarete, but Helmut stayed where he was, a pensive look on his face.
“Your knapsack is packed,” he said. “It’s under the bench, at your feet.”
“Aren’t you coming too?”
He shook his head. “It would be suspicious. With you and Margarete, it will look like I was sick and so you’re here to help. Which reminds me …” He reached into the pocket on the inside of his jacket and drew out what looked like a small grey booklet. He thrust it into my hand.
The outside was embossed with the Reich logo of a swastika in a circle, and an eagle with outspread wings above. Identity papers. Something I did not have. I opened it. Official stamps. The photograph of a woman who looked something like Margarete, only younger. In the spot for a name, it said Berta Pfaff.
“She was my niece,” said Margarete. “She had been sickly for a long time and died last year, but I managed to keep her papers, and they’ve come in handy more than once. If we’re stopped along the way, hopefully the soldiers won’t look at them too carefully.”
Helmut reached up and clasped my hand in a firm shake. “Stay safe, Luka.”
Underground Soldier Page 4