A Sparrow in Terezin

by Kristy Cambron

  “What debt?”

  “It was nothing the first time. A single-car accident in my youth. He had the DUI charge wiped from my record. But the next time and the time after that? I should have gone to jail.”

  “How could you not have told me this? Will, everyone has a past.”

  He stared, eyes aching. “Yeah, but not everyone has their life paid for. He tossed money at lawyers. Judges. Whomever would cash a check. And I thought because of my sins, the way I shamed the family and he cleaned up after me, he owned me. I thought if I followed in my father’s footsteps and did what he and my grandfather wanted, it would set things straight. They wanted a Hanover in the boardroom so that’s what I would give them. I worked hard. Threw my life into it. I learned. I polished up in a CEO’s suit and tie and by thirty years old, I’d become exactly what they wanted me to be.”

  “And that was?”

  “Like them.” He lowered his head. “I was loyal to family, yes, but loyal to money first. I was going to grow their name. And then she showed up at our door one day.”

  “Katie?”

  He nodded. “She’d come to California, looking for the father she’d never known. I was the only one on the estate at the time and at first believed she was lying. Why wouldn’t someone wanting money come along with a well-crafted story? But when I really looked at her, I knew. She had a birth certificate and a story with dates that lined up, but all I needed was that pair of Hanover eyes staring back at me.”

  “Your father’s.”

  “Yes. Katie is about Macie’s age. He’d had an affair and none of us knew we had a sister,” William said, his voice racked with pain. He swallowed hard and continued, though she could see emotion clouding his eyes. “Everything I thought my father was—everything I’d tried to become for him—it was a lie.”

  “But none of this is your fault. Your father’s the one who—”

  “It is my fault, Sera. I confronted him about Katie, felt it was my duty as the oldest son to expose his shame. To protect my mother and siblings. I told him to choose,” he admitted, shaking his head. “That we didn’t want or need him anymore. I said I’d keep his secret, never tell Paul or Macie. They wouldn’t have to know.”

  “Will—”

  “And he left. Packed up his companies and walked out.” He ran his hands through his hair.

  “But how could you do that to your father? It wasn’t your choice to make. Paul and Macie would have been shocked to know Katie existed, but if you’d have only given them time . . . and what about your mother? And Katie? I visited her today and she’s hardened by all of this. She’s grown up without a father. When she learned who she was and came to you looking for a family, you turned her away?”

  “I came here, to London, after my father left. To confront him about the transaction to turn the artwork over to the company. Those signatures are mine but there was nothing illegal in it, not then, at least. We were going to use it as collateral to stave off the debt problems. But things started to turn around, and though the transaction to sign the assets over to the company was never supposed to go through, my father pushed it through anyway. Before he died, my grandfather told him he’d been cut out of the will, in part because of Katie. And by the time I’d found it buried in the company books, my father had already pocketed the money. I’d been liquidating the estate with property that was no longer mine to sell. I may have been a new CEO, but I wasn’t stupid. The only error I made was trusting my own father. And he couldn’t accept that the kingdom he wanted was about to be handed over to someone we’d never met. Someone who owned a painting of a Holocaust victim.”

  Sera felt her throat close up. “Sophie? Your father did all of this because the will had been changed.”

  William turned back to her, shoulders shaking.

  “And he knew the decision of whether to keep the inheritance had been handed over to me.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  April 13, 1943

  Terezin

  A hand came from behind so quickly that Kája hadn’t time to react.

  The palm covered her mouth so that any scream she might have let loose was lost, silenced by fingers pressed up hard against her lips. Another arm came across the front of her shoulders with lightning speed, pinning her against a man’s chest.

  She fought back, kicking about wildly. Her foot connected with a bucket nearby, sending it sailing with a crash across the floor.

  “Hush! I’ll not hurt you!” The fierce whisper came from a voice she thought she knew. A familiar tone, noted somewhere before. “Please! You must keep quiet if you want to live. Understand?”

  She nodded her head under the weight of his hand.

  “I’m going to remove this,” he said, lightening the hard press of his hand upon her face. “But you must promise me that you’ll not say a word. Ja?”

  The accent was unmistakable. He was German. One look at the gold buttons on his sleeve and her heart sank—an officer.

  Lord, help me!

  Her breathing quickened. She tucked the load of bread in the folds of her skirt, praying that it had been too dark for him to see evidence of the theft.

  “Can I trust you not to cry out?” he whispered close to her ear.

  She nodded once more and immediately his hold on her relaxed.

  “Keep your head down or they’ll see you,” he instructed, and with a firm but surprisingly gentle hand, pushed her head down below the top of the shop counter. “It’s a death sentence if they do.”

  The beam of flashlights passed by outside, along with the bootfalls against pavement, and they were left alone.

  Kája watched as he looked left to right, the flex in his jaw tight as his gaze methodically covered the span of the shop front. He looked out until all sound died away and they were once again alone with only the moonlight to pour in over them through the windows.

  She finally caught her breath and bent over, nearly sick with how close she’d come to getting caught.

  “Are you hurt?”

  She managed to shake her head. “No. I’m all right.” It had been fear that affected her most.

  He sagged his back against the underside of the counter. It was then that she looked up, the moonlight casting a glow against his features. Her suspicions were confirmed—it was the officer from the street, the one who had helped the old man months before. The one who’d removed his hat at the passing of the cart full of the dead.

  “You? I saw you that day . . . in the street.”

  He didn’t acknowledge her comment. Instead, he flew into a series of questions.

  “What are you doing here? Do you realize what could happen? That you could have been—” He stopped short, then continued in a rough whisper. “The guards are always monitoring the streets.”

  She knew it, yes. They marched around with guns drawn, that much she could see in their shadowed outline through the glass windows.

  “Why are you out after curfew?” He was looking at her now and—curiously—seemed to have genuine worry painted upon his features.

  Kája kept the bread hidden down in the fold of her skirt and with a barely there voice said, “My mother is weak with hunger.”

  “You’re here for food.”

  She nodded. They were starving. Wouldn’t anyone who snuck out after hours be scrounging for food? She couldn’t let him know the whole truth, that her mother had taken ill with fever and desperately needed nourishment. If he knew, surely he’d send the guards to take her away.

  “So you came here.” He grasped her forearm lightly and pulled it forward. The bread was exposed to the light. He shook his head, jaw tighter than before when the SS were walking past the glass. “Do you have any idea what the penalty is for stealing? They’ll send you to the Gestapo prison for this.”

  “I know.” Kája kept her head down. She’d have felt a terrified weakling if he saw one tear form in her eyes.

  “And any Jew sent to the prison is surely condemned to death.”

>   She willed herself to speak, but could only nod through the abject fear of the Nazi officer standing before her.

  “Then why take such a risk with your life?” He hooked a thumb under her chin and tipped her face up, his eyes finally meeting hers. “Your father is on the Jewish Council, ja?”

  It was an authoritative question. One that she was sure he meant to use to intimidate her. He seemed to know who she was and that alone created a new feeling of panic.

  Kája refused to answer. She merely kept her eyes down and fought with every breath to keep her whole body from shaking.

  “You are afraid of me?”

  He dropped his hand as if he’d been burned.

  He turned then, found the hat that must have fallen from his head during the struggle, and yanked it up from the floor. He raked his fingers through his hair and mumbled, “What did I expect,” then slammed the hat back on his head. “What do you need?” he whispered, and offered his hand to help her up in the darkness. She climbed up from the floor with his assistance, but quickly dropped her hand from his as soon as she stood upright.

  “Food . . .” She trailed off, still wondering if she could possibly trust him. Her voice was barely more than a whisper when she repeated, “We’re desperate for food.”

  “How many are in your barrack?”

  “Six.” She shuddered, terrified she was sharing too much. “But we’re not in the barracks. We are in an attic near the school.”

  “One small loaf of bread is not enough.”

  “It’s all I could risk. I’d hoped for sausage or salted pork—some sort of meat. The butcher’s block is so heavily guarded that I couldn’t hope to get in and out without being noticed unless I came in at night.”

  He dusted off his uniform lightly. “Fortunate you are that you didn’t try the butcher’s. There isn’t any meat there anyway.”

  “What? But why?”

  “The shipment of meat won’t be in until May, when the German Red Cross is expected.” He shook his head. “That’s what they say, at least.”

  “I’ve passed by all of the shops in town. Most of them sell wares taken from the transports in. Suitcases full of jewelry and fine clothing. What use would anyone have for it here? And they gave us money only good in the camp, some sort of currency. But who could use it? There’s nothing to buy. I even saw my mother’s own pearls in the window, the necklace and earrings given to her from my grandmother,” she professed, trying to avoid the hitch of emotion from wavering her voice before him. “They mean nothing now, not when we’re starving. I thought at least the butcher’s shop would be a chance. They have meat casings hanging in the window and I hoped—”

  “Painted plaster. They want it to look like there’s an abundance of supplies.” He exhaled and shook his head. “It is all for show.”

  He was the first German she’d ever heard that didn’t identify with the rest of the SS. He hadn’t said “we" but “they,” as if he were separate from the SS in the camp. It was a small thing. So small, he probably hadn’t noticed he’d said it. But she did. She looked back at him, wondering where the compassion had come from.

  She judged it genuine.

  “So meat. Bread,” he noted, looking back at her.

  Immediately self-conscious under the scrutiny of his gaze, she brushed back a lock of hair, wispy and soft, that had escaped the loose chignon at her nape. She thought of what she probably looked like to the officer, bony and thin, disheveled and dirty like the half Jew that she was. It forced her head down again.

  He stood before her, quiet. Waiting. Then abating her fear with the softness of his voice.

  “What else? What do you need for the children?”

  “What?” she whispered, suddenly frightened that the guards would come back. It was too quiet. She could hear her own heart thumping through the shadows between them.

  “The children,” he whispered. “You work at the school. Surely you can use supplies.”

  She nodded, dumbfounded. “Yes—we can. But all I can think of is food. The children need nourishment to strengthen them. Something more than moldy bread and tepid soup.”

  “What else?”

  “Umm . . . paper. We haven’t any that’s not already been used. I’ve been tearing cardboard and brown mailing paper from the ration boxes that arrive. The post office brings discarded letters here, the ones meant for inhabitants who have died or been transported out—”

  “Paper. I believe I can find you some. Anything else?”

  “Pencils—sketch pencils if you have them. Watercolors or pastels too. Anything with color, really. The children need it. And some means to create. I’ll take anything beautiful for them. Tissue paper. Paste. Crayons.”

  Kája wasn’t prepared to answer questions about the school, yet she found herself trusting the officer. She couldn’t help asking for whatever one might dream of for the children.

  “I don’t know what supplies there are to be had, but what I can find, I’ll bring.”

  “And books?” Kája’s heart leapt with the request. “Any books you have. I know there is a library, but they won’t allow the children to go there while they’re working. Whatever you can find in German, Dutch, and Czech. We’ll hide them—I promise. We’ll even bury them if we have to. But they need to read. Books create the ability to escape into a different world, and the children are desperate for it.”

  He nodded and asked, “Where is your attic? What building?”

  Her breath caught in her lungs for a moment.

  Could she trust him?

  “It’s just two blocks away, but not there.” She shook her head, thinking of the many people who shared their lodgings. “Bring them to the school. The doctor with the Jewish Council is my father, yes. He will know where to bring them.”

  “Good.” He seemed to accept her idea and he asked nothing after that. “Come. You must go back.”

  She’d dropped the bread and bent down after it.

  “The bread!”

  He pulled her back sharply, so that she nearly lost her footing. He held her elbow in his hand, not harshly, and looked into her eyes.

  “Please,” she said. He tugged her by the hand toward the back of the shop.

  “Can’t you see? It’s moldy. You’ll only risk sickness. I promise you will have what you need by morning. But I don’t want you getting caught with it now, not when it will do you no good to eat it.”

  He held on to her hand as they walked through the shop toward the back door, an action that both shocked and rained guilt down on her. Was she actually poised to trust him, to find something good in him, to allow a Nazi to touch her skin without coiling back in revulsion?

  “You must listen to me,” he said, pulling her with him until they came to the back alley. He poked his head out and looked left to right, then turned back to her. He pulled back just until they were both steeped in shadow. “I promise you’ll have what you need. Go to the back door of the school at dawn. I will leave a box for you there, hidden behind a stack of crates.”

  Kája pulled her hand out of his grasp. “You know that I am a Jew. Why would you care? Why would you help any of us?”

  He gave an embattled nod and took a last look down the street.

  “I know you are a Jew,” he said, and finally sprang forth into the alley. She followed close behind. “That’s why I’m helping you.”

  “Your name, sir?” she asked as they crouched down by stacks of crates on the street corner.

  He seemed surprised by her question. He wrinkled his brow slightly, then whispered, “Dane.” He pulled her with him along the bricked wall behind the school building. “You can make it if you run the rest of the way. Stay out of the light.”

  Kája nodded, though her feet wouldn’t move. She longed to understand why. Why would he help? And why still would he wear the uniform of death and help the Nazis in their gruesome activities? What kind of contradiction was he?

  She lowered her eyes, hoping only to avoid those striki
ngly kind eyes of his.

  “Thank you,” she managed to say, and it was more than she’d ever imagined conceding to a Nazi.

  “Go now. It’s clear,” he ordered in a stern whisper, and melted back in the shadows while she took steps away from him.

  Then she turned, fear penetrating all points of her insides again, and ran as fast as she could. She didn’t stop until she was inside the building that housed their little attic room and collapsed, heaving, her back against the inside of the door.

  What had just happened? The officer had not turned her in. In fact, he had given her his name.

  Dane.

  He’d offered it. Freely. Without pause. And yet hadn’t inquired or allowed her to give hers. She wondered, as she wiped the sweat from her brow and silently climbed the stairs—was it because he already knew?

  She had her answer when she arrived at the school early the next morning, and she and Sophie found a crate of supplies left at the back of the schoolroom door.

  There was food—more of it than they’d seen in months, a little banquet of bread and salted meat. Colored pencils. Watercolors in glorious blues and yellows. Kája could have kissed them she was so happy. Everything was a dream, right at the back door of their school. It was marked with a note, a single word written on it: her name. And with it, a box of paper. Dane had brought stacks and stacks of paper for the children to use.

  Kája smiled for the first time in forever; they were up to their elbows in the useless currency of Terezin.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  So, you’re at the airport. You’re going home?”

  Penny had concern in her voice. Why wouldn’t she? Sera had just unloaded the entire messy business of William’s past and now she sat in the busy terminal at Heathrow airport, alone, pondering her next steps. She had a ticket to San Francisco in her hand, but she still had no idea whether she’d actually use it.

  “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “And he’s staying here?”

  “For now. Yes. I told him I was going home to think things through, but now I just don’t know what to do.” Sera slumped down in the chair, dotting at her eyes with a tissue as she spoke. “There was no shouting. No anger, even. I just told him that he needed to focus on the case and I—well, we—were going home so he could.”