by Ted Dekker
Martha had cried herself to sleep for two straight weeks in prison, remembering the brutality of that day. They’d been eating lunch— imported Swiss cheese and strawberries with a wonderful white wine— listening to Father talk confidently about the return of better days, when the pounding came on the door. Not just a knock, but smashing fists and shouts. For a moment they’d all frozen, even Father. Then he’d dabbed his lips, pushed back his chair, and assured them it would be all right. Yes, of course, he’d set things up with Kallay’s high-ranking officials. No harm would come to his family.
But they all knew that one day harm would come. Most able-bodied Jewish men already had been sent to labor camps. All Jewish property had been legally confiscated.
Martha closed her eyes, doubting whether she could share this particular secret of hers. “My husband and father were killed in our home,” she said with an ease that surprised her. “They took my mother and younger sister, but I haven’t seen them.”
It was enough for a few hours. After a period of rocking quietly with the clanking train, Martha rested her cheek on the shorter woman’s head and quietly cried for the first time since boarding.
They whispered above the sound of the tracks several times over the next day, exchanging precious secrets that were really not secrets at all. They were both Jews. They had both lost their husbands and their homes. They were both young—Ruth twenty-five and Martha thirty-two—and above all, they were both on the same train, rolling and grunting and whistling its way steadily closer to some unknown destination.
Now, the dawn outside marked Martha’s fourth morning aboard the cattle car, and still the train rumbled north, always north. Ruth sat next to Martha, knees bunched up to her chin, brown eyes bright, a fighter who’d accepted whatever comfort Martha could offer.
Ruth faced her and whispered. “Do you think we will both be in the same place?”
“I don’t know where we’re going.”
“To a labor camp.”
“A labor camp? You know this?”
“I think so.” Ruth hesitated. “Do you know what they are doing? The Germans?”
“In the war?”
“No, to us. To the Jews.”
Martha had heard rumors, hundreds. “They are killing some and forcing the rest to work.”
“They are exterminating us,” Ruth said. “It’s why Paul and I went into hiding. The station where I was put on the train—I think that was a camp called Auschwitz, where they kill us like cattle. There are other death camps, but not this far north, I don’t think.”
Martha stared into the darkness. Surely Ruth was exaggerating. “They can’t just kill like that.”
“But they do. I heard it from someone who escaped from a camp called Sobibor. They kill with gas and then burn the bodies.”
A chill swept over Martha. Gas?
She felt Ruth’s eyes on her. “You’re pregnant?”
“What?”
“You’re pregnant, aren’t you?”
Martha sat up, terrified that her secret was known. Was it so obvious? A cotton shirt and a loose wool sweater hid her belly well. This was her first child, and even without the loose shirt she wasn’t showing much.
“I am also,” Ruth whispered.
“You . . . you’re pregnant?”
“I don’t think we should let them know.”
Martha was at a loss for words. If Ruth could see that she was pregnant in this dim light, surely others would see it as well. She’d refused to consider what the Germans might do to her when they learned of it, but she couldn’t escape the certainty that they would eventually discover her child.
“How did you know?” she finally asked.
“Don’t worry, it’s not so obvious. I see these things.”
“And they won’t?”
“If they do, they’ll know that I’m pregnant too,” Ruth said. There was a comforting sweetness in her voice. She had a heart of gold, this one.
“How many months are you?” Martha asked.
“Six.”
“Six? I am almost six!”
“Five then? You hardly show! It’s your first? It must be your first.”
Martha wondered if any of the others could hear their excited whispers. She lowered her voice.
“Yes, my first. And yours?”
“Yes.”
For a minute, the secret lives they carried within them overshadowed any sense of pending doom. Martha could feel Ruth glowing beside her.
“What will you name it?” Ruth asked.
“I . . .” Now the desperation of their plight surfaced again. Martha looked away. “I don’t know.”
Ruth placed her palm on Martha’s belly. “He feels like a David to me,” she said.
“And if it’s a girl?”
Ruth hesitated. “Esther. David or Esther.”
THE TRAIN’S whistle pierced the silence. The cadence of the wheels immediately slowed. Martha tensed, then stood and peered through the thin crack.
“What is it?” Ruth asked over her shoulder. “We’re stopping?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you see buildings?”
“Yes. Yes, there are buildings!”
Murmurs swept through the boxcar. A woman to their left demanded that someone tell them what was going on. It occurred to Martha that the question was directed at her. She had the best eye-level view out of this box.
“I think we’re stopping,” she said. “There are buildings and a fence.”
“A fence?”
Voices bubbled up in the car. A loud hissing confirmed her suspicions. The train was stopping.
Martha’s palms were wet already. Good news might greet them here. A drink of water. Some soup and bread—stale, soggy, moldy; it wouldn’t matter. There would be a toilet. Even a hole in the ground would be a welcome sight.
Ruth laced her fingers with Martha’s and squeezed tight. “This is it! This has to be it.”
“I think so.”
The air felt electric.
Only Martha and another woman, who poked her head past Martha’s knees, could see clearly. The train passed guards who held back dogs straining against their leashes. Soldiers lined a road beside the tracks, rifles slung, some staring casually, others smoking. A tall fence topped with rolls of barbed wire ran along the perimeter of a compound, which housed dozens of long rectangular buildings.
Martha glanced over her shoulder. The women who could stand had done so. They’d grown quiet again, eyes wide in the dim light, staring at her or at the cattle gate. Their door to freedom.
Ruth leaned into Martha’s ear and whispered. “The strong are allowed to work. Stand tall and suck your belly in.”
Martha put her arm around the woman and drew her tight. “Thank you, Ruth.” She kissed her head again.
She wasn’t sure why she was thanking young Ruth.
“Promise you won’t leave me,” Ruth said.
“I won’t.”
The car jerked to a standstill.
They heard the dogs then, a chorus of barks that seemed to have started on command. The lock rattled. Martha’s heart hammered at twice its normal rate.
The gate swung open, and light flooded the car. Martha strained for a view.
The first thing to catch her attention was a German officer standing thirty feet away beside a line of trucks. He wore a freshly pressed SS uniform with a bright red-and-black armband, arms folded behind his back, legs spread in bulging slacks, shiny black holster at his side. But more riveting than these were his eyes. Even at this distance, she saw them clearly. They were blue. And they were dead.
The next thing Martha saw was the sign above the gate.
TORUŃ
“Out. Step off the train and line up by the trucks.” A guard pointed at a caravan of seven or eight flatbed transport trucks behind him.
For a moment, none of the women moved.
“No need to be afraid. Hurry!”
They surged out of the train
as quickly as aching joints would allow. Ruth released Martha’s arm, and they walked down the ramp into the crisp morning air side by side. All the way down the train, women emerged from the freight cars, which were fewer now than Martha remembered from when she had boarded in Hungary. Maybe ten cars remained.
“Make a line. Make a line!” The guards hustled the women into a long line, several deep. They weren’t beating or shooting, simply bringing order to a situation that required it. This was not the way soldiers intent on extermination behaved.
Martha hurried for the line, Ruth by her side. The morning air felt fresh; she could smell something, maybe baking bread. They might even have hot showers. It had been a month since her last hot shower.
Or perhaps they would be gassed.
“Follow the guards into the camp. We have food and blankets. Follow the guards into the camp.”
They hurried as best they could past the gate and into the camp called Toruń. Martha gazed at the sprawling compound and tried to remain calm. The other women weren’t hysterical. Ruth wasn’t crying or showing fear. She had to be strong. Martha straightened her back against the terror.
The yard was a slab of brown mud beaten into submission by thousands of feet. Not a blade of green grew between the buildings. Four guard towers rose above the fence, each manned with three guards. Overlooking the entire yard, a red house stood on a rise to the right. A large German flag rolled lazily on a pole from the highest gable.
“Form a line, form a line!”
“I think we might be in for some trouble,” Ruth said, staring at the large brick buildings to the left.
“Silence! Single file!”
The women extended their line until they stood shoulder to shoulder at the center of the yard. A dozen women dressed in frayed shirts and slacks, women who apparently lived here, walked past the new group in single file, watching. Several others dressed in gray uniforms worked with the new arrivals, jostling them into order, issuing commands even though they looked to be prisoners too.
Martha saw an SS officer from the corner of her eye; she turned. Ruth glanced over, saw the man, and stood still. It was the officer Martha had first seen, the one with dead eyes.
The officer strode toward the group from the left, a long overcoat now draped over his shoulders, a stick gripped in both hands. He walked to the middle of the yard and faced them.
“You have arrived at Toruń, subcamp of Stutthof, in Poland. My name is Gerhard Braun, and I am god.” He spoke in Hungarian, and his eyes remained flat. They settled on Ruth and lingered there as he spoke.
“I have selected each one of you. For that you should feel fortunate. Your train came through Auschwitz, yes? In Auschwitz, you would never receive such personal service.
“Now, I imagine that most of you would love a bowl of hot soup and the opportunity to relieve your bladder. Am I right?”
None of them responded.
“Answer me when I speak!” The officer’s face flushed.
“Yes,” Ruth said loudly. Martha hesitated, unnerved by her friend’s bold response, then mumbled the same with the others.
He paced, calming himself. “I was sent to this stink hole only because I speak Hungarian fluently, and I will tell you that this place easily can put me in a bad mood. In fact, most of the time I am in a bad mood. There’s no need to exasperate me. At this very moment, my twelve-year-old son is watching us from the window of my house. He’s visiting from Germany. His name is Roth. I would like all of you to wave at him.”
Martha glanced at Ruth and then up at the red house a hundred meters away. First a few, then all of the women waved at the window, though they could see no one behind the glass.
“Good. Now, I have a decision to make,” Braun said. “I can send you to the barracks where you’ll be assigned duties and then fed. Or I can send you to the building to your left.” Without turning, he let his stick flop in the direction of a large brick building. “This building is where we give you a shower. Has anyone heard of the showers?”
Martha felt her muscles stiffen, but she dared not speak.
“No? The showers at Auschwitz are ten times as large as ours. They say you should never hold your breath while taking a shower.” He paced, lifted his face to the sky, and then faced them.
Martha’s stomach twisted. Surely he didn’t mean to kill them. Birds were chirping in a huge poplar by the gate; the morning sun was bright on the horizon; they’d done nothing wrong. Besides, he surely wouldn’t toy with them in this manner if he intended to kill them. She let out a slow breath.
None of the women had spoken.
“Take your clothes off and leave them on the ground with your belongings. Now!”
“Suck your belly in!” Ruth whispered.
Martha quickly pulled off her shirt and then her slacks, holding her belly as tight as possible. In less than thirty seconds, they were naked.
Braun stretched his arm toward the showers. “Move!”
They turned and filed through the mud like a flock of white geese. Two female guards hurried them on each side. The dead-eyed commandant watched them go.
Martha refused to let her mind assess the situation. Thoughts of warm showers and hot soup had fled. Perhaps being treated as cattle on a cattle car had been better.
They marched into the brick building, past a line of square wooden toilets, and into a large cement room with a dozen shower heads protruding from one wall. Martha felt a wedge of panic rise in her chest. She had to be strong!
She bumped into Ruth, who had stopped in front of her.
“Keep moving!” one of the guards yelled. “Move!”
Ruth spun, eyes wide. “It’s a shower!” She ran to one of the shower heads that dribbled a steady stream of clear liquid, cupped her hand to catch some, sniffed it, and whirled about.
“Water! It’s water, Martha!”
The showers suddenly began to spit and spray. Ruth grabbed handfuls of water and splashed her face and mouth. Martha stood rooted to the concrete as the women rushed to the flowing water, crying out with delight. How many of them had suspected something other than water, she didn’t know, but she felt their rapture.
To her right, two expressionless female guards watched.
“Martha!” Ruth called.
Martha ran into the cool streams. Life flooded her skin and reached into her soul. She lifted her hands and shrieked with exuberance. She couldn’t remember feeling so alive.
There was a God in heaven, and he was kissing them with this water.
Or was he?
6
Los Angeles
July 18, 1973
Wednesday Afternoon
STEPHEN AND CHAIM APPROACHED RACHEL SPRITZER’S ABANDONED apartment building from the north. Ordinarily, Stephen drove with the ease of someone who’d found a thousand addresses in Los Angeles— one hand on the wheel, the other on the listing; one eye on the map, the other on street signs. Today, the nervous twitches of a new driver ran through his bones. Both hands on the wheel, both eyes glued to the windshield.
They’d stopped by Gerik’s antique shop to retrieve the note, an unexpectedly innocuous note written on white paper with thin blue lines. The words still bounced around Stephen’s head.
I have searched all of Europe for my son. An orphan after the war, perhaps. His name is David, and his father died during the war. I placed half of David’s Stone on his right shoulder, under his collarbone.
That was what the note had said just above a sketch identical to Stephen’s scar.
And, They must not know that he is my son. I would fear for his life if they were ever to find out.
And, I had hoped he would come because of the Stones, but I could not make it widely known. This note is my only remaining hope. Tell no one unless it is he. May God forgive me.
That was it.
So who was Rachel Spritzer?
How had she come into possession of a Stone of David?
For that matter, who was he? Stephen
’s foster father had named him, upon collecting him from an orphanage in Poland. But his name was really David. It simply had to be.
Gerik had been little help. He had been as surprised as anyone that Rachel had harbored such a treasure all these years. Rachel had given Gerik the note six months earlier when her health began to fail. But he hadn’t opened it until after her death, as instructed. If Chaim hadn’t made a comment about the scar on Stephen’s chest, Gerik never would have connected the note to Stephen.
Whatever had prevented Rachel Spritzer from revealing her connection to a lost child had held power over her until the day she died.
Stephen had received the note with a trembling hand and paced for fifteen minutes, asking unrelenting questions. But there were no answers. Not from Gerik, who knew Rachel better than most, he said. Rachel was a private woman.
Three blocks off La Brea, the traffic thinned considerably. Amazing how neighborhoods changed from one street to the next. Here stands a million-dollar home with elegant palms and a mermaid fountain in its front lawn. There, a mere slingshot’s distance off, stands a home surrounded by lumps of clay.
“It could be coincidence,” Stephen said.
“Yes, it could,” Chaim responded. “I can’t see it though. Can you? The mark on your chest matches the sketch in her note.”
“Still. Could there be any proof?”
“They’ve already buried her. I don’t know.”
“What about the will? Maybe she mentioned something in the will?”
“Gerik said no.”
Stephen nibbled on a fingernail and tried to think clearly. All these years his mother lived not twenty miles away? He wasn’t sure whether it was preposterous or tragic. Why hadn’t she found him? Why hadn’t he found her?
This couldn’t be his mother. Not this rich woman who’d died and made the local news. The woman may have abandoned him in Poland, then gone on to live a life of luxury while he scraped to build a life from scratch. The woman quite possibly had given birth to him, but she could not be his mother.
“It should be up ahead on the left,” Chaim said.
Stephen fought a sudden urge to turn back, afraid of what he might find. Or what he might not find.