I cleared my throat. “It is not every day I see a ghost.”
“A ghost?”
I swallowed. “I thought you were dead.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.” I clenched my trembling hands in my lap. I would not let him see how upset I was. That, at least, I could spare myself.
Anton watched us as if we were the most entrancing film he had ever seen.
“Anton,” I said. “Please wait for me at the bar. I will be along in a moment.”
He hiked my satchel up on his shoulder and went. He knew better than to argue with that tone. He took a seat a few stools away from Fräulein Ivona’s handsome man.
The bashful man at the other table paused in his game, probably sensing something amiss, but with a quick shrug he went back to his cards.
“What is your name these days?” I asked.
“Lars Lang,” he said. “Same as ever.”
So he was not using the false identity under which we were married. It was as if I never existed. “Do you still work for the SS?”
“Discharged,” he said with a grimace. “Under a personal cloud but not, in case you are worried, a criminal one.”
“How did you find me?”
“Your Swiss paper said that you would be going to Poznań to cover the festival.”
Of course. A teaser for my upcoming story had appeared in the newspaper. Since he knew my pseudonym, finding me must not have been that difficult. My hotel in Poznań had probably directed him here. “Why did you find me? And why now?”
“I am glad to see that you are well.” His tone was matter-of-fact as he dodged these two questions. “Are you glad to see me?”
“I thought you had betrayed me or died.” The hours wasted mourning when I should have been angry instead. “I suppose, for your sake, I should be happy it was the former.”
The smell of alcohol drifted across the table. I gauged his state—neither visibly drunk nor completely sober. Hopefully sober enough to avoid causing a scene. “I’ve missed you, Spatz.”
His term of endearment cut. “Really?”
He pulled on the cuffs of his white shirt. “What brings you here?”
“The refugees,” I said. “You?”
“It is the last stop on my delivery route before Berlin.”
I looked into his dark eyes. I had much I wanted to discuss with him, but I was so angry that nothing came to mind. Then one thing did. Ruth. She might still be locked alone in a cupboard, and so far no one had returned my calls. “Could you run an errand for me in Berlin? Tonight?”
“For you,” he said. “Anything.”
I bit back a retort. Ruth had no time for my hurt feelings. I summarized the happenings in the stable and gave him Paul’s address. I also told him that Miriam’s death had made me uneasy, so he should be careful.
“I am always careful.” His lips curved up into a hollow smile. “I can leave immediately, once we have solved the question of my fee.”
The Lars I remembered had never been interested in money. But then again, perhaps that man had never existed outside of my memory.
“What is your fee for saving a child’s life, Herr Lang?” My tone rang colder than the air outside.
“I’m certain that you and your banker can come up with something commensurate with my exertions.” He cocked his head to the side, clearly expecting me to name a figure.
“I am afraid my pockets are not so deep as you seem to think. A reporter’s salary is meager, but as you know, I have a few objects of value I could sell, if you were willing to wait for your payment.” I still had some of my brother’s jewelry, although with so many selling their possessions and fleeing Germany, that was worth less every day.
He rocked back in his seat. “The banker won’t pay?”
“Why would he?” I had ended my relationship with Boris more than two years ago, before I had taken up with Lars. Boris continued to be a presence in Anton’s life, but he was no longer a presence in mine.
I read surprise in Lars’s eyes, something I had rarely seen there.
Fräulein Ivona walked into the dining room carrying two plates. She smiled at the man at the bar and set a plate in front of Anton. Then she came to our table and placed a thick white plate in front of me, looking smug.
She turned to Lars. “I see that you found my employer.”
Lars’s mouth dropped open.
“Fräulein Ivona.” My words came out high and strained. “What is the meaning of this?”
She sat across from me and folded her hands in her lap like a schoolgirl. “I believe that you are acquainted with Herr Lang?”
“What is the meaning of this?” I repeated. No other useful words came to mind.
“I followed you,” she said to Lars. “To the train station in Poznań yesterday.”
That was the day that Anton and I had arrived.
Lars rubbed his forehead. “Why?”
“Because, my darling,” she said. “I wanted to see where you were going.”
Darling? I thought back to her conversation earlier in the day. Lars was the excellent lover with the one-month deadline. I had been mourning him for two years while he was sleeping his way across Poland. I pressed my dry lips together and watched him squirm.
“I saw how you looked at her.” Disdain toward me was clear in her tone. Fair enough. I did not like her much right now, either. “And I realized that my month had ended early.”
“I told you the very first night that I was not free,” Lars said calmly.
Fräulein Ivona directed her ice blue eyes to me. “You’re not the first. And you won’t be the last.”
“I am not in the race at all,” I said. “Luckily.”
“I spent the day with you, trying to see what he could possibly desire in you,” Fräulein Ivona sneered. “But I saw nothing.”
Lars cleared his throat.
“Good-bye.” She stood and kissed him hard on the mouth. I looked toward Anton. He had stopped pretending to eat his soup with his spoon halfway to his mouth.
She strolled to the bar, where the handsome man handed her a glass. I longed for a shot of something myself. But I had a few things to resolve with Lars first. “Are you certain that she knows nothing incriminating about me?”
“I do not believe so.” Face impassive, he watched her wrap her arms around the man at the bar. “I’ve never spoken of you to her, so I imagine that all she knows is that she saw me watching you at the train station and then whatever she has learned since you’ve been dragging her around all day.”
I forced down a flash of rage. “Where the hell have you been for the last two years?”
“I’m sorry, Spatz. Things became rather complicated for me in Russia.” He brushed a lock of black hair, too long in the front, out of his eyes and shifted on his chair.
“Somehow—” I gestured toward the bar. “—you manage to amuse yourself.”
“I doubt that you have been idle yourself.”
I had, in fact, been completely idle, but I had no intention of telling him that. I gritted my teeth. “Are you certain she poses no risk to me, or to Anton?”
“Yes.” A muscle twitched under his eye, as it always did when he was angry. Let him be.
I took a deep breath. “How did you meet her?”
“In a bar. Late. I was drunk and she was beautiful. A familiar refrain.”
Two men in dark coats entered the lobby, but I paid them little attention.
“And there was nothing odd in her wanting to take up with you?” She was much younger than he and very attractive. Surely that had made him suspicious. Suspicious was his natural state.
He smiled mechanically. “She wasn’t the first, Spatz. I’m quite competent in bars.”
I tried to ignore that. Apparently, that was none of my concern.
Lars leaned forward and reached for my hands. I pushed my chair back with a screech.
He sat back. “She’s no risk to you. I checked her out shortly after I started sleeping
with her. She’s not involved in the Party and has no connections that are in any way suspicious.”
“She strikes me as a very vulnerable young woman, Lars. You should not be toying with her affections.” I thought of her mother’s recent death and the eerie way she stared at the flames. She was not entirely stable.
“So, you two are friends?” he asked. “You wouldn’t like her if you knew her. She’s the most anti-Semitic woman I know, and my circle of Nazi acquaintances is quite wide, as you know.”
The men rang the bell for the clerk. I realized with a start that under their dark coats they wore Gestapo uniforms. Gestapo in Poland? I stood to fetch Anton from the bar. We had to leave.
But the Gestapo officers already crossed the dining room, making a beeline for my table. Anton was now safer if I left him there. I sank back into my seat.
“Spatz?” Lars asked. “Why are you jumping up and down like a jack-in-the-box?”
A hand closed cruelly over my shoulder. I looked up into the lumpish face of a Gestapo officer. Another stood next to him, practically quivering with excitement. My stomach clenched.
“I beg your pardon.” I tried to pry his massive fingers off, but he would not let go. My shoulder resembled a child’s in his huge paw.
“I believe that you are Hannah Vogel?” he asked in a gravelly voice.
I tried to think. I had crossed the Polish border as Adelheid Zinsli. I had registered at the hotel as Adelheid Zinsli. The only living people in Poland who knew my real identity were Anton and Lars. Anton, I trusted. I wanted to blame this on Fräulein Ivona, but did not see how she could have known, unless Lars had told her. Had Lars turned me in?
“I am afraid that you are mistaken,” I said. “My name is Adelheid Zinsli. I am a reporter for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung.”
He jerked me to my feet as easily as if I were made of straw. Physical resistance was impossible.
My eyes darted around the table, looking for weapons. Two teacups, two saucers, and two spoons. And a plate of sausage and kraut. A laughable arsenal.
His smaller companion moved to the side, flanking us, perhaps worried that I would snatch up a spoon. Lars stood, too, but he stumbled as he did. How drunk was he? Not that it mattered. Even sober, he could do little against two armed and alert Gestapo men.
“I am a Swiss citizen,” I said.
Anton swiveled on his barstool and caught sight of me.
Gravel Voice stuck a hard metal object in my back, where no one could see. A gun. I winced. Lars’s face tightened. I trusted that he knew of the gun, and I hoped he would do nothing to get me shot. Although perhaps he would enjoy it. I had no idea what he might be capable of, I reminded myself.
I looked up into Gravel Voice’s impassive ash gray eyes. He dug the gun farther into my ribs. He would have no problem shooting me. My avenues were closing down fast.
“Let’s not make a scene, Fräulein,” he said. I did not think he would care if I did make a scene. It would give him a chance to hurt me.
“Could you please fetch my coat?” I asked Lars. Both he and the Gestapo men looked confused. Lars, I pleaded silently. Get Anton out of here. I had to trust that Lars would do that. That I had not been wrong about everything with him. “I gave it to that boy at the bar.”
“Certainly.” Lars bowed, clicked his heels, and limped toward Anton. When had he developed a limp? Before I had time to think on that, my captor dragged me toward the dining room door. His partner followed.
Anton walked toward me. He would not let me be taken without a fight. My heart quickened. Lars had to stop him.
“Why are you arresting me?” I spoke quietly so as not to cause a scene. I needed to keep them calm, and to keep their attention focused on me, instead of on Anton.
Lars pinned Anton against the wall and dropped a hand over his mouth. I closed my eyes so that the Gestapo men would not see my relief. But would Lars take Anton safely back to Switzerland? Anton’s chances had to be better with Lars than with the Gestapo. I straightened my back and talked up to Gravel Voice. “I am a Swiss citizen. And you have no authority in Poland.”
“I make the authority I need.” His gravelly voice sounded matter-of-fact. For him, today was another ordinary day. Only for me was it a unique disaster.
We quick-marched across the lobby, his fingers digging painfully into my upper arm. Surprised murmurs followed us to the door. My body screamed to fight, but I could not. If I did, Anton would try to help, and even if he were not hurt, they would take him back to Germany, too. I had to prevent that, whatever the cost.
Gravel Voice’s colleague opened the hotel door, and he shoved me through it into the night. Gooseflesh sprang up on my arms. The air felt only a few degrees above freezing, and my coat hung in my hotel room. If I lived to be thrown into their car, I had a cold ride ahead.
Gravel Voice yanked my hands in front of me and snapped on tight handcuffs.
“You are a traitor to Germany.” Outrage covered the pockmarked face of Gravel Voice’s friend. His words lisped out in white clouds. “You are wanted for murder. For consorting with traitors and Jews.”
“That is nonsense,” I blustered. “I am a reporter for a Swiss newspaper. A Swiss citizen. You cannot—”
Gravel Voice picked me up like a toy and dropped me into the trunk.
6
He threw a blanket over me and slammed the trunk lid before I could move. I thrashed under the blanket. The car juddered to life, then jounced into motion.
We shot forward, and I bounced painfully around the trunk. Hoping that we would reach a paved road soon, I shielded my face with my cuffed hands. Would they take me into the woods and shoot me, or did they intend to drive me back to Berlin and interrogate me? A quick murder in the woods seemed the better option for me.
We stopped. I kicked against the trunk lid and shouted, but to no avail. Seconds later we started again, the road considerably smoother now. The stop could not have been the border. Surely the Polish border guards would take longer than that to let us across. As minutes passed and we did not stop again, I realized that it must have been.
For the first time in two years, I was in Germany.
I felt carefully around with my cuffed hands for a way to open the trunk, but I was securely entombed in the darkness.
I wrapped myself in the scratchy blanket as best I could. I wanted to sleep. Best to face the Gestapo rested. Just a few minutes’ sleep would help. My eyelids grew heavier.
Gas must be leaking in from the car’s exhaust system. I fought to stay awake. Each blink lasted longer than the one before.
I woke shivering. My teeth chattered. My head ached, my heart pounded, and my breaths came quick and shallow. A nursing lecture came back to me, on hypothermia, and I mechanically checked off symptoms.
I felt sluggish. How close were we to Berlin? It was a three- to four-hour drive from Zbąszyń, but I had no sense of how long I had been out.
If only the border guards had heard me, I might have had a chance. In spite of dragging me out of the hotel, the Gestapo had no authority there. People might shelter me. The police might protect me. But we had crossed into Germany. Matters were much more complicated. Here I could rely on no one, especially not the police.
The car slowed, crunched over gravel, and rolled to a stop. Doors slammed. Voices rumbled outside. Liquid pattered against the ground. They must be relieving themselves.
I pounded the trunk lid with numb fists.
The lid opened into night.
I squinted at the shape above me and cleared my throat. “P-p-ardon.” My teeth chattered together so hard, I thought they would crack. “P-p-please. B-b-bathroom.”
Two things stood between me and freedom: the men who had taken me. I must escape them before we got to Berlin. If not, I would die.
Gravel Voice called forward. “The traitor is awake.”
“Not trait-t-t-or.” I forced out. “Mistaken.”
In actual fact, I took pride in being a traitor to t
he Nazi regime, but this did not seem the best time to bring that to their attention.
“We should let you lie in your own filth,” he sneered.
“Your t-t-trunk.” I shivered so hard, I could barely sit upright. I did not know how I could stand, let alone overpower one or both of them. But I must. My sluggish brain tried to formulate a plan.
“I don’t fancy cleaning it.” The pockmarked driver came around. “Get her taken care of. It’s more than an hour to Berlin.”
I struggled to control my panic. An hour away. And I was in the woods in Nazi Germany. Even if I got out of their car alive, no one would help me.
I took several deep breaths. My immediate options had not changed. I had to escape from two men. After that, I would do what I could to get the handcuffs off and get back to Poland. One step at a time.
“Your problem.” Gravel Voice yanked me out and dropped me on the roadside. I skidded on gravel on my hands and knees. I imagined the stones must be sharp, but I felt nothing. I stood awkwardly, still shivering, and stamped my numb feet, trying to get blood flowing into them.
If I slipped away, they might not be able to find me in the dark.
Gravel Voice walked back to the front seat, shaking his head. The driver stayed by me. He was barely taller than I. I felt a surge of relief that the larger man had returned to the car.
The running motor’s exhaust puffed out in a cloud of blue. The headlamps cut through mist to reveal empty road in front. We were alone.
“P-p-rivacy?” If I got away from the car, they might not find me if I ran.
“It’s no ladies’ club,” he said. “Piss where I can see you.”
I would have no chance to run. Whatever happened, I would have to do it alone and right here. I pointed to the ditch a few meters away. “There?”
He shoved me toward the ditch. When we reached it, we both stopped.
“Get on with it,” he said.
I looked past his head. Gravel Voice’s silhouette faced forward in the passenger seat, back bent as if he leaned to adjust the radio. The driver moved his head to follow my gaze, turning his back to me.
I dared not think about what I had to do. I had one chance to survive. I swung my handcuffs over his head and pulled the chain that held my cuffs together taut across his warm throat. He scrabbled at it with both hands. I kicked the backs of his knees. He fell, landing hard against my chest. I collapsed onto the ground with his weight atop me. My head struck a rock. The world swam in and out of focus. I struggled to retain consciousness.
A City of Broken Glass (Hannah Vogel) Page 5