by Susan Finlay
Neither of them replied for a couple moments, looking at each other. Taking the lead, Werner spoke. “Please forgive my question. I probably spoke out of line, fraülein. I meant no insult. It’s just that thirty years ago, my wife and I were caring for an orphaned baby and she was snatched away from us.”
Sofie’s lower lip dropped and she stammered, “Me? You think I was that baby?”
He shrugged.
Oh my God. “Please tell me what happened.”
Werner remained silent for what seemed forever, looking to Helmut and then back to her. Sofie began to wonder if, at his advanced age, he even remembered, and if so, was his memory good enough to remember any details. But she anxiously waited, her hands folded together in her lap so no one would see her fingers fidgeting.
He cleared his throat. “It was all very complicated. You need to understand some of the backstory to understand why Vikktor did what he did.”
Sofie glanced at Ingrid out of the corner of her eyes, assuming Ingrid must be as tense as she was. But Ingrid remained impassive, rigid as a statue.
“Do you know Karl Kimmel?” Werner then quickly shook his head. “Oh my, I am getting senile. Lotte—Ingrid already told me you know him, didn’t she? Forgive me. Anyway, Karl’s father and my father went to school together and were friends until they finished school.” He stopped and took a sip of his drink, his hands shaking, as well as shaking the cup, spilling a bit of liquid over the side. He didn’t speak again.
“You were telling us about Karl’s father,” Sofie prodded.
“Ah. Sorry. My father joined the military during the First World War. Mathias Kimmel, Karl’s father, became a baker. Then, during the second World War, when Mathias was pressed into military service and found out what was going on with the Nazi party, he deserted and went back home to his wife and son. His wife was furious that he’d left his post.”
“She wanted him to fight in the war?” Sofie asked.
“Ja, she was very headstrong, and also very gullible. She believed in Hitler’s ideas. Anyway, Mathias knew about the time portal—his mother had told him about it when he was a teen and she even told him how it worked. Seems she knew everything about it.”
“Did she write it down anywhere?”
He shook his head. “Well, Mathias told her he was going back to duty, but he really went straight downstairs into the cellar and through the portal. On purpose. He wanted to get away from the war, from his wife, from everything. Once he got familiar with the portal and with the past time period, and after he found a place to live, he started his own business. He would go back into the future and get paid to transport Jewish people, pacifists, who were at risk in the war, and anyone who had trouble with the law, into the past where they were safe.”
“Mathias smuggled people?” Sofie asked.
Werner nodded.
Ingrid gasped.
“Did Karl know?” Sofie asked.
“I think not. Karl was just a kid at the time and was at school when his father came home and then left again the same day. As far as Karl knew, his father was still a soldier fighting in the army.”
Sofie said, “Karl told my husband that his own father, Mathias, was killed in the war. I guess he wasn’t telling the truth.”
“Like me, Mathias traveled into the past,” Werner said. “But unlike me, he traveled back and forth. Although Mathias was in the future often, he never returned home, because his wife would have kicked him out for being a deserter. She knew, because the Nazi’s had come to their house looking for Mathias. I don’t know if Karl ever knew the truth about his father.”
Ingrid put her hand over her mouth and said nothing.
“Is that also what Vikktor does?” Sofie asked.
“Ja. That is part of what he does.”
“How did you end up here?” she asked.
“On one of Mathias’s trips, he was picking up a soldier who didn’t want to fight with the Nazi party any longer. I was a friend of that soldier. When I discovered what they were doing, I asked to go with them.”
“So you chose to come here.” Ingrid said it matter-of-factly.
“I did. I have missed my family, but I don’t regret my choice. I even helped Mathias for a short time. I justified it by telling myself I was helping my countrymen—not the Nazi party, but the women, children, and soldiers like me who only wanted to live their lives.”
“I understand,” Ingrid said, leaning forward. “Some things are not all black or all white.”
Sofie asked, “Then how did Vikktor get involved?”
“It was many years later. Mathias found Vikktor at the cave portal, the one you came through. Vikktor had time traveled by accident with Karl. Those two were only eighteen or nineteen at the time and knew nothing of the portal. Our dear brother Vikktor was trying to figure out how to get back to his own time.”
“Did Mathias send him back?”
“Not right away. As I understand it, he told Vikktor his story. Vikktor didn’t agree with transporting people who he felt were traitors to his country, and he didn’t like transporting the Jewish people, but he saw that there was good money to be made.”
Ingrid said, “That’s Vikktor, all right. Always looking for ways to make money. I think he would sell his soul to the devil to get money.”
“Vikktor became sort of an apprentice and worked for Mathias for fifteen years. When Mathias died, Vikktor carried on the operation but made some changes—transporting only people he wanted to transport and also transporting goods that could make him rich.”
Ingrid asked, “Did Vikktor know you were here, too?”
“Not for a long time. Mathias kept that secret. Vikktor eventually heard about me from someone. I don’t recall who it was. He searched for me for several years. You see, I had found a lovely place in the Schwabien Forest and built a stone cottage with my family, and it took him that long to find me.”
“What happened when he found you?” she asked, leaning forward.
“Oh, he was friendly at first. We were brothers and shared much in common. He was thrilled to have not only a brother, but a friend.” He shook his head, got a faraway look in his eyes. “That did not last. We talked for a while, catching up on details of our lives. Eventually, Vikktor asked about how I ended up in the past. I told him I came to the past because I’d grown sick of killing during the war and had come close to dying too many times. I was afraid and didn’t want to work under Hitler any more. I wanted out. Vikktor was disgusted with me. He saw me as a traitor to his country and a weakling, and more importantly, a traitor to our father who was a top-ranking official in the Nazi regime. We got into a big argument, and he went into a fit of rage.” He looked into Ingrid’s eyes.
She understood. Vikktor was a hot head. He’d always been that way. “But you said Mathias time traveled to get away from the Nazi party, too. Didn’t Vikktor know about that?”
“I think he did not.”
Ingrid said, “But Mathias and Vikktor were helping others escape from the war.”
“That was business,” Werner said. “Not personal for Vikktor.”
“Have you seen Vikktor since your falling out with him?”
“I have not.”
Sofie said, “You started telling us this because you said it would help explain why he took the baby.”
“Ah, well, you see, Vikktor thought the baby was my granddaughter and several days after our argument he came back to see me. He told me that he was punishing me for my betrayal by snatching her away.” He paused and wiped a tear from his eye. “Gretchen and I were devastated, of course. The baby wasn’t really ours, but we had cared for her and loved her as part of our family.”
Sofie leaned in and looked Werner in the eye. “Am I that baby? Please tell me. Vikktor told me he was my grandfather. He raised me, with my great-aunt’s help. Then, a few months ago, I found out it was all a lie. I don’t know who I really am. You have no idea how tormenting that is.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN<
br />
GOOD GOD!” MAX said as he ran his hand through his hair, shaking his head, releasing his frustration and tension to the universe. “I’m really beginning to hate this place. Again.” He and Konrad were sitting on a couple boulders, trying unsuccessfully to stay dry, underneath two trees that hadn’t lost their leaves yet. At least the branches and leaves kept some of the rain off them, but staying dry was becoming a losing battle.
He’d eaten breakfast with Lisa and Jenny this morning and made arrangements with Magda to keep an eye on them and keep them occupied for a few hours, so he and Konrad could ride back into Riesen to search for Tobias. When they had left the sky had looked cloudy but not threatening, and they expected an easy ride into town. They rode slowly, constantly searching with their eyes for any sign of Tobias. Thirty minutes into their travel, it started sprinkling. Moments later, buckets of rain spilled from the skies, driven with gale force winds, blinding them, threatening to knock them flat off their horses. Thunderous claps of lightening zigzagged across the skies, spooking their steeds, forcing them to seek shelter.
Crap! Why couldn’t anything be easy? Sofie could be back any day now and she would fall apart if he didn’t find her son by then. He’d barely slept the night before, worrying about Tobias, about Sofie, and about his ex-wife and his daughter. What did he do to deserve this, he thought, feeling like he was being personally punished? And Max missed umbrellas. He missed hot running water. He missed riding in comfortable cars. He missed cell phones. He missed designing houses and buildings and letting someone else build the damn things.
The night before Tobias went missing, Tobias had said he missed video games and his friends and school. Could it be that he missed those things enough that he’d tried to get back through a portal? At the moment, Max could certainly identify with the desire to return to the future.
“Are you all right, Maximillian?” Konrad asked, cocking his head and looking at Max.
“Ja. I’m just frustrated.”
Konrad tilted his head.
“Oh, uh, es tut mir leid. Uh, ich bin frustriert.” He hoped his German pronunciation was okay. He could understand more German now, but still wasn’t comfortable speaking the language.
Konrad nodded. “Is hard problem, this search, ja?”
Max tried to smile and reassure his half-brother that he wasn’t upset or giving up. That wasn’t an easy thing to do, as he was having enough trouble just convincing himself that he was all right.
Konrad smiled back. Max patted him on the shoulder, realizing suddenly how much he’d come to rely on Konrad for a lot of things, including supervising the other workers. It had been hard to trust and share the responsibility in the beginning, especially since Max had never had a brother before, and since he had been the oldest of the kids in his family—older than his sister and all their cousins—and had always been expected to be strong and never rely on anyone else.
He nodded to himself. Yes, he’d changed a lot in the four or five months he’d been in this century.
The storm didn’t seem to want to give up, either. Pretty soon hail pounded down on the tree branches overhead and down onto their heads. The sound was deafening. They quickly tied the horses to a tree to keep them from running off. Max felt bad for the poor mounts but there was little to be done for them. Max and Konrad dashed to some nearby bushes, crawling under and between them as much as they could. There they waited, thoughts running rampant in Max’s head. Hell! He internally ranted, thinking about their village. It would weather the storm well enough, but no work would get done building their house, either. Not in this sucko weather.
At least Lisa and Jenny were dealing with their predicament reasonably well, he mused, trying to see a bright side. And why not? They’d had it easy. They didn’t have to steal clothing, sleep in a dark cellar, run away from people before they spotted them in the cellar. They didn’t have to ride in a wagon or on horseback all the way to Senden. They didn’t have to deal with someone they knew dying in a gasthof while they were traveling.
Dang! He stopped himself, recognizing his continuing abysmal mood. He didn’t want to feel bitter toward them simply because they didn’t have to suffer as much as he and his time traveling companions. That kind of attitude wasn’t gentlemanly or fatherly, but what the hell? Why did Jenny always come out ahead no matter what the situation?
Then he thought back to the conversation he’d had with Jenny right before he and Konrad had left to search again for Tobias. Jenny came up to him after everyone had scattered, and put her hand on his arm.
“I’ve missed you, Max. We made a big mistake getting a divorce. I know that now. We have a family together and a history that no one else shares. I tried to make it work with Roger, and it was fun for a while, but he’s not you. He’s not the man that I met in college and grew up with.”
He had pulled his arm away and stepped back a couple of steps, not wanting to be near her. “Our divorce was hard on me. Do you know that? You kicked me out and treated me like I was old discards for the second-hand store. Yeah, of course we have a history—some of it great and some not so great. I’ve missed my family that you took away from me.”
She stepped closer to him. “I’m sorry for the pain I caused you and our kids. I’ve changed since the breakup. Grown up some more, I guess.” She hesitated, searching his face. “I came to Germany not just looking for Ryan, but looking for you, too. Don’t you see? I still love you.”
“I’m happily married now, Jenny. We can’t be together again; I’m sorry.”
“You’re married to someone you’ve known for only a few months. You went through a scary adventure with this woman, and I get it—you thought you’d never get back to your time. Your relationship makes sense from that perspective. Having time traveled, too, I get that you were scared witless. But, Max, really? We are family. You, me, Ryan, and Lisa. We belong together.”
Max had shaken his head, turned, and walked away, not wanting to get into a he said/she said argument, the kind he’d had with her all too many times.
A deafening crash of thunder overhead pulled Max from his thoughts. Hail was no longer pounding around him, so he stood up on one knee to look around. Yep, the hail had stopped and the wind had mostly abated. Finally something good. After a few minutes, the rain dwindled down to sprinkles. Max and Konrad crawled back out of the shrubbery, their hands and knees covered in gooey mud.
Max walked out into the open and stared up at the sky. The clouds were moving out at a rapid rate. Thank you, God!
They looked over where they’d tied the horses. Gone. Crap! They must have pulled loose, the storm scaring them off. Max scanned the terrain around him in every direction, hoping to see their mounts, but there was no sign of the horses. He hoped they would eventually find their way back to the village.
Since he and Konrad were closer to Riesen than to Möbius, the two started walking toward the town.
“We find Tobias,” Konrad said. “I have good feeling.”
“I hope you’re right.
“Where we go first?”
“Gramps’s house. Uh, Karl’s.”
Konrad nodded and quickened his pace.
Max sped up, but he could barely keep up with Konrad’s pace. The kid’s stride was almost as fast as Ryan’s. Of course it didn’t help that Max’s feet kept sinking into muddy spots, and he had to pull on his boots, which made disgusting sucking sounds. Somehow it didn’t seem to affect Konrad. As he walked, horrible images of Tobias lying face down in a creek popped into his head. God he hoped Tobias hadn’t tried to get to Dinkelsbühl on his own.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
INGRID LICKED HER lips, waiting for Werner to answer Sofie’s question. Mein Gott! This could change everything. If Vikktor had snatched Sofie from Werner because she, the baby, was Werner’s adopted grandchild, that would make Werner Sofie’s family, wouldn’t it? She remembered Werner’s exact words: ‘Gretchen and I were devastated, of course. The baby wasn’t really ours, but we cared f
or her and loved her as part of our family.’ Not really ours. Hmm. Well, if he and Gretchen had even unofficially adopted her, then she was theirs, and that made her really Ingrid’s great-niece.
Werner sighed, rolled his shoulders, and then said, “I believe you are that baby. I cannot say positively. Only Vikktor can tell us for sure.”
Sofie anxiously leaned forward. “What was my name? Who were my parents? I need to know more.”
He shrugged. “The woman who brought the baby to us didn’t tell us much, only that the parents were dead. She knew us . . . from church and she felt she could trust us to care for the baby.”
“What did you call me? What name?”
“Sonja.”
Sofie sank back in her chair, looking deep in thought. No one said anything for several minutes, giving Ingrid a chance to study faces. Helmut looked as if he were troubled, Werner looked preoccupied.
Ingrid said, “Why didn’t you go after Vikktor and get the baby back?”
“I did. We fought, physically, and one of his punches sent me flying into some farm equipment. Back then, we lived on a farm. The equipment put two large gashes in my left leg. I couldn’t get up without help, let alone chase after him. By the time I was able to walk, he was long gone.”
“When did you see him next?” Ingrid asked.
“Not until I moved here to Riesen. Twenty years ago.”
“He lives here?” Sofie asked.
Werner shrugged. “I don’t know where he lives, or if he even stays in one place for long.”
Ingrid said, “Do you see Karl Kimmel much?”
“Sometimes. I helped him when he first arrived in the past.”
Sofie gasped. “So Karl has known all this time that you live right here in this house? He never said a word.”
Werner twisted his mouth. “Be careful of Karl.”
“Careful of him?” Sofie said. “He’s my husband’s grandfather and Ryan’s great-grandfather.”
“But you know little about the man,” Werner said. “Do not trust everything he tells you.”