Breadcrumbs and Bombs

by Susan Finlay

  Ilse Seidel, July 18, 1944, Memmingen, Germany—

  ILSE SHOOK HER younger siblings, Ursula and Robert, trying to wake them from their deep slumber. How could anyone sleep through all the noise? she wondered. The air-raid sirens blared outside like a banshee. Commonplace, these days, yes. Perhaps they had become so common that people could easily weave them into their dreams. But how could anyone not hear the fighters roaring directly overhead, shaking the house so loudly they sounded like they might land on top of their roof? “Wake up, both of you.” Both kids were now rubbing their eyes, her brother rising up on one elbow and making a grumpy face, and her sister rolling over onto her side, away from Ilse. “I’m serious. We must hurry to the shelter. Don’t you hear all that noise? Come. Grab your shoes and hurry. Mutter, Oma, and Opa will meet us at the shelter.” Mutter, out of breath, had stumbled into Christa’s bedroom moments earlier and told her to get the kids safely to the shelter. She would help her parents, both of whom were sick and not walking especially well. She would have her hands full.

  All the loud footsteps running down the stairs was masked by the horrible noise overhead. A herd of elephants could have run down the stairs and no one would have heard.

  Outside now, Ilse, Ursula, and Robert ran through the cobbled streets amongst their neighbors. The sky rumbled and crackled like a devilish thunderstorm and everyone froze, gazing up at the roiling sky. Tonight was different. This wasn’t allied planes dropping bombs on the town or on the nearby airport. Tonight, both allied and German planes shared the heavens. What was happening? Ilse stared in anticipation, unable to look away.

  Sharp cracks and explosive sounds filled the night air. Sparks flew from plane to plane. The sky was on fire, exploding into breathtaking displays, followed by gray and orange clouds of smoke.

  “Mein Gott!” somewhat yelled. It was then that people began to panic and run again. Ilse realized that the planes being hit and plane debris would be crashing to the ground on top of them.

  “Oh Gott! Run!” Ilse yelled to Ursula and Robert. “Schnell!” She reached out to grab them, but they were already racing toward the bomb shelter. She ran after them and only hesitated a moment, helping a fallen woman and her little boy get back up and moving.

  Inside the shelter, Ilse couldn’t see much. A few lanterns gave off yellowy light, but the people in the entrance were slow moving and blocked her view.

  She bit her lip, not wanting to scream at them to keep moving so others could get inside. Maybe they were old, like Oma and Opa. For all she knew, they could be the ones holding up the line.

  A man in line behind her yelled out for the people in front to move, and he didn’t hesitate to yell obscenities.

  Ilse cringed. Bad enough that everyone was scared. The line did, however, begin to move and she could now glimpse some people sitting around, huddling with their families, trying to comfort small children, and keep warm. Ilse suddenly realized it was frigid in here. With so many people packed in like sardines, one would think it would be warm in the shelter.

  As she picked her way down a haphazard aisle, she put her hand over her mouth and nose. Oh, mein Gott, what was that horrid smell?

  She glanced to her right and saw a man squatting and defecating in front of everyone. Whether he was scared and lost control, or just had to go too badly and hadn’t gotten a chance, she didn’t know. And didn’t care to find out. Just keep moving.

  What if her siblings didn’t make it to the shelter? She was supposed to get them here safely, and they had gotten separated from her. What if Mutter had too much trouble dealing with Oma and Opa and they were still outside? What if an airplane fell—she couldn’t finish that thought. Keep moving.

  “Ilse, Ilse! Over here.”

  She turned to her left, following the sound of the voice. Ursula was standing on her toes, waving her arm wildly. Robert was beside her. Thank Gott!

  She rushed over to them and hugged them both. “Have you seen Mutter?” she asked.

  “Ja,” Ursula said. “She and Oma and Opa are over there.” She pointed. “They saw us but cannot get over here because of the crowd.”

  Ilse nodded, relieved. That was all right. They could see each other and know they were all safe. For now.

  An hour and a half later, the all-clear signal chimed and the people began exiting the odorous shelter. As Ilse stepped outside, she covered her mouth and nose again, unsure which smell was worse, in there or out here. The night air was pungent, a mix of smoke, fuel, and something she couldn’t quite put a finger on. Death, maybe. She grabbed hold of Ursula’s hand on one side of her and Robert’s hand on her other side. Together, they moved away from in front of the door and waited to the side for the rest of the family.

  When they arrived home, Opa turned on a single lamp in the parlor, and they all flopped down, huddled close together for comfort and warmth.

  Mutter said, “What happened? Some people said it was an air battle.”

  “We heard that, too,” Ilse said. “It must have been, because the planes were attacking each other.”

  Opa left the room and returned with his BBC radio. He turned it on and adjusted the antenna to listen to the latest news.

  Indeed, there had been an allied mission—an extensive strategic bombing campaign. Not only in Bavaria but in other parts of Germany and in other areas of Europe, as well. German fighters at the Memmingen Airdrome—the airport—had risen to attack the allied planes. Memmingen was on the news. The world news.

  “Who won?” Robert asked. “They did not say.”

  Oma and Opa exchanged glances. Opa said, “Nobody won. I am sure there were casualties on both sides.” He shut off the radio. “We go to bed now. We will see what tomorrow brings.”

  Petr Jaroslav, July 18, 1944, Olomouc, Czechoslovakia—

  THERE WERE TIMES Petr Jaroslav wished he were a Jew. Then he would get inside a concentration and . . . and what? If he was a Jew, he wouldn’t have weapons. He wouldn’t have any choice and wouldn’t be able to do a damned thing to help anybody else. Sometimes he heard people in town talk about the Jews and say they deserved what happened to them. “Look at them, meekly standing on the street with their suitcases, letting the gestapo prod them and poke them. Then they climb onto the trucks as if they are going on holiday. Surely they must know what is happening.” A friend of the first speaker would pipe up and say, “They do not care. Or they are too stupid to fight back.” It took all of Petr’s strength not to jump into the conversation and give them a piece of his mind. What the hell were the Jews supposed to do? The gestapo had guns, assault rifles. They killed people right out in the open if they disobeyed. Would either of those two men fight back if they were in the Jews’ position? No. No question there. Petr knew who the fighters were. He knew who the ‘yes men’ were, too.

  Three days ago Petr’s oldest brother, Antonin, had trekked all the way to Thereseienstadt to get his girlfriend Rebeka out. He did it against the strident advice of their father and all the other men who outranked him in the resistance. Antonin didn’t care what anyone said. He was getting Rebeka out and nobody was going to stop him. Wasn’t that the sort of thing they were all fighting for? Freedom?

  At least he’d gone on his mission prepared. Armed to the teeth, from all accounts. Antonin didn’t get inside. According to news that had reached the family by way of the grapevine, he had seen Rebeka standing in the yard. She didn’t wave or acknowledge him. She couldn’t, without drawing attention. The guards saw him, anyway. He was shot before he could finish cutting through the barbed wire fence.

  Supposedly, Rebeka had gone into hysterics. The guards had grabbed her, took her and made her face the other prisoners, and then shot her dead, too.

  First Vera. Now Antonin and Rebeka. He was losing his family, picked off one at a time.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Lucas Landry, July 2017, Sacramento, California—

  “I DON’T KNOW what to do with the contact information for my German relatives,” Lucas
told Tawny. He’d thought about it off and on all afternoon. They’d finished eating dinner an hour ago and were now sitting on the sofa, with Bianca on Tawny’s lap. “Seemed like a good idea to get it, you know, in case my aunts don’t know enough about our family’s history. They were pretty young when they left Germany and moved to the U.S.” He hadn’t told her who had given him the contact information, letting her assume that Aunt Anna had given it to him at the hospital.

  “When do I get to meet your aunts? I know Elsa is in the hospital, but maybe I could meet Anna,” Tawny said, reaching her hand into a bowl of popcorn.

  Lucas opened his mouth to speak, but before he could get a word out, his cell phone rang.

  “Oh, Lucas, I’m glad I could reach you.”

  “Hello, Aunt Anna, we were just talking about you. How did the operation go?”

  Tawny raised an eyebrow, and Lucas remembered he hadn’t told her he left before Elsa got out of surgery.

  Anna didn’t answer right away. Uh oh, that’s not a good sign.

  “Lucas, she . . . Elsa . . .”

  Lucas held his breath, feeling a weight pressing down on his shoulders the way it had when the doctors had come out of the room where they’d been working on his father, solemn expressions on their faces. No. She couldn’t be dead, too. It had only been a month since her brother had died.

  “What happened?” he asked, closing his eyes, not wanting to hear bad news.

  “The surgery went okay. The doctors don’t know why, but believe she had a stroke afterwards, or maybe there was a bad reaction to the anesthesia. She’s in a coma and might not . . . wake up.” She broke down and sobbed.

  He let her cry. Poor woman! When she quieted, he said, “Do you want me to come over? Are you at the hospital? I can be there in an hour.” He glanced over at Tawny, a questioning look on her face.

  “No, no, it’s okay.” He heard her blow her nose. “I’m staying here at the hospital tonight. My kids and Elsa’s kids are here and there’s no need for you to come. But you asked me to call and let you know. You’ve been nice to us and you’re family now.”

  You’re family now. Was he?

  “Aunt Anna, is there anything I can do for you, or for the family? I’m really new to this and I want to—”

  She cut him off, saying, “You don’t need to do anything, Lucas. Just knowing you care helps. Get a good night’s sleep, and maybe come by the hospital tomorrow, if you can. Tomorrow is Saturday, right?”

  “That’s right. I’ll come by tomorrow.”

  “Thank you. Take care of your wife and child. Family’s everything,” she said, her voice cracking toward the end. “Elsa . . . would tell you that herself, if she could.”

  Lucas hung up the phone and closed his eyes. How was it that these two women he’d barely met had already become important to him? If Elsa died, he would be devastated, and it would not be from losing a resource for his research. And why didn’t he feel as bad about his own father’s passing? Am I cold-hearted? Am I guilty of reverse prejudice?

  He opened his eyes and took in Tawny and Bianca. “I love you both,” he said, and leaned toward them, taking them both in a giant hug.

  “What happened to your Aunt? Elsa, right?”

  “She made it through the surgery, but afterwards something went wrong. They don’t know what happened, but she’s in a coma.”

  “Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry, Luke.”

  “Daddy, is she going to die? I don’t want her to die,” Bianca asked, her big brown eyes looking up at him. She leaned toward him to give him a hug.

  “Thank you, sweetie. We don’t know yet.” He patted Bianca on the head, and gave Tawny a questioning look.

  She shrugged.

  Neither of them had ever talked to Bianca about death, so Lucas didn’t know why she would ask that question. Then it hit him. He had talked to her about his parents that day when he’d first gone to check out his father’s house. He’d told her that they’d died.

  “I’m going over to the hospital in the morning,” Lucas said. “They don’t need me there right now. Lots of family there, you know.”

  Tawny covered his hand with her own. “I hope she pulls through. You and Elsa have some catching up to do. I’m sorry you didn’t find your aunts sooner.”

  Yeah, that was unfortunate. Then another thought occurred. Why couldn’t they could have found me? Seth found them and had told them about me. They might have even known about me before then. Did they not care?

  In the morning, Tawny was sick to her stomach and running a fever. Lucas went into Bianca’s bed to check on her, since she hadn’t run into their bedroom and pounced on the bed to wake them up like she usually did.

  “How are you this morning, bug? Are you sleeping in?”

  “My head hurts, Daddy. And my tummy feels yucky.”

  He reached down and felt her forehead. She was as hot as Tawny. “You stay in bed and I’ll get you some medicine, okay?”

  Back in their bedroom, he said, “Sorry to bother you, hun, but where do you keep the medicines? And do you have any children’s cold medicine?”

  “Oh no, don’t tell me Bianca is sick, too.”

  He nodded.

  “It’s in the master bathroom in the medicine cabinet. Would you bring Bianca in here, please? We probably have the same thing. Might as well be sick together and keep each other company. You can bring me medicine, too, and a couple glasses of water.”

  “Okay. Be right back.”

  He returned to Bianca’s bedroom. “Hey, bug, it’s me again. Mommy is sick, too, and wants you to keep her company, if that’s okay with you.”

  She held up her arms, and he picked her up, along with her teddy bear.

  After setting her on the bed next to Tawny, he hurried downstairs to the kitchen, grabbed two glasses and filled them halfway with water, then picked up a box of tissues and climbed back up the stairs. He set the items on the nightstand closest to Tawny and left again to get the medicines.

  “You’re going to wear yourself out with all that running around,” Tawny said when Lucas came back with the medicines.

  “Do you want me to give the medicine to Bianca?”

  Bianca sneezed three times in a row as if answering.

  “Absolutely not,” Tawny said. “You should leave this room and spray disinfectant in the hall bathroom and downstairs bathroom and the kitchen and anywhere else that we’ve been in the past day and go wash your hands. Then go visit your aunts in the hospital.”

  “I could be carrying germs. Don’t want to expose them or their families. I’ll call Aunt Anna and let her know what’s going on. I can visit them another day.”

  “Shoo. Go spray, wash your hands, and then go to the hospital. After that, go to the other house and do more research. Keep yourself busy and let us sleep.”

  “But—”

  “No buts. Go. I don’t want to see your face around here until night, is that clear?”

  “You’re going to need food.”

  “Feed a cold, starve a fever. We both have fevers and won’t be eating anything for a while. Go.”

  “What about the baby? Will your being sick with the flu affect the baby?”

  “Don’t worry about that. I’ll call the doctor’s office and ask, but I’m sure it will be fine. Go.”

  How could he not worry? Bianca had been two months premature. They didn’t know why. They almost lost her.

  “Lucas, just go. We’ll be fine. Don’t come back until nighttime. We need to rest and you need to stay away from us so you don’t get sick.”

  He was halfway down the stairs, when he heard something. It sounded like, “Daddy”, but he wasn’t sure. He retraced his steps to the top of the staircase and said, “Did you say something?”

  Bianca called out, “Daddy, can you bring me the kitty?”

  “Your stuffed kitty?”

  “No. The real one.”

  He sighed and looked over at Tawny, who nodded. The things a father did for his f
amily. “Okay. I’ll bring her over, if I can find her. She likes to hide, you know.”

  He left the bedroom and gently closed the door behind him. Downstairs, in the pantry, he found disinfecting spray and cleaned up the kitchen, the coffee table and sofa, and then the main floor bathroom and Bianca’s bathroom. That done, he scrubbed his hands.

  His watch read 9:30. It would take him an hour or hour and a half to get to the hospital, depending on traffic. He turned to run up the stairs and tell Tawny and Bianca he was leaving, but remembered what Tawny had said about not wanting to see his face until night. They were probably asleep, anyway.

  He strode through the kitchen and out the door leading into the garage. As he got into his car to head over to the hospital in Santa Rosa, he pushed the garage door opener and watched in the rearview mirror as the overhead door lifted.

  Busy day ahead. Oh, wait. The cat. Oh, crap.

  All right. The wife and kid come first, he thought. He drove to Sacramento, put the litter box, supplies, cat dishes, and cat food in the back of his Jeep, and then went in search of Hallie. The search was easier than expected. She was sleeping on his Dad’s bed. He scooped her up, locked the front door as he exited the house, and placed the cat loose in his car. Of course she meowed all the way to his house, periodically looking out each window and trying to climb over him twice.

  Finally, he arrived home and did everything in reverse, starting with taking the cat into the house and letting her explore. When she finally made her way up the stairs and into the master bedroom, Bianca let out a loud cry of joy.

  AT THE HOSPITAL, Lucasseco sat with Anna and her family. Nothing had changed overnight. Someone asked if he’d brought his family with him, and he explained that they were down with the flu.