A City of Broken Glass (Hannah Vogel)

by Cantrell, Rebecca

  “She said that her mother died recently. Do you know where?”

  Lars looked at me in surprise. “Her mother is dead?”

  “She told me her mother died a month ago.” I thought back to her words in front of Doktor Volonoski’s fireplace. “It is no more reliable than anything else she said, but the letters started then, too. It did not seem like a lie at the time, but—”

  “Many things didn’t seem like a lie at the time,” he muttered angrily. “Can we get her file? That should have some facts in it.”

  His faith in the accuracy of Nazi record keeping was disconcerting. “Wilhelm cannot. What about your sources?”

  He studied the untouched stew congealing in front of him. “Doubtful.”

  “We have to assume that she will kill Ruth.” My voice wavered. “As she killed Paul.”

  “If she favors her father, she is sadistic enough to want us to suffer as long as possible before she kills us,” he said. “So Ruth is probably safe.”

  I did not point out that she could already have killed Ruth while still continuing to torture us. I did not want it to be true. “You know her better than I.”

  “I don’t think I know her at all,” he said. “But I know that she’s a fervent anti-Semite. She worshipped her father, and he was a devoted Party man.” He ticked off the point on his thumb.

  I waited for him to keep counting. He knew more than he thought. I hoped.

  He raised a finger. “And she’s a clever strategist. Assuming someone else’s identity because she thought I might check. Writing you the letters to lure you here. Those are all thought-out maneuvers. Whatever she’s doing, she’s doing it carefully.”

  The song ended, but Anton quickly dropped in another coin. The waiter watched us with interest. “What else do you know about her?”

  Lars took a deep breath. “She’s a crack shot. We went hunting together a few times.”

  “I wonder why she did not shoot you?”

  “Why did she start with me?” Lars asked. “Why not you?”

  “You were easier to find. Hahn’s colleagues might have told his daughter where you were. You are probably listed as one of the last people to speak to him, so it would not be unreasonable for her to use that as a pretext to want to speak to you. Or perhaps she thought that you might be easier to control.”

  He grimaced. “As I was. I led her straight to you. The minute you arrived in Poland.”

  She was no fool, and clearly determined to get us both.

  “That makes it my fault,” he said. “All of it.”

  “You could not have known.”

  “Couldn’t I?” he said savagely. “It’s my job to know.”

  I touched his shoulder, but he shook off my hand. The third song ended. Quiet expanded through the room. Anton was out of coins. He looked to see if he should come back. I gestured him over, and we finished our lunch.

  The day passed in a frenzy of useless activity. We visited Hahn’s old apartment. Lars talked his way in again, but found nothing. I called the newspaper every hour, but they had no more messages.

  * * *

  Evening came with no answers. The sun set, and darkness rolled in. Still we drove around Berlin. We had no idea how to find Fräulein Ivona and Ruth, but when we were moving, it at least felt like we were doing something.

  At eight thirty that night, the radio announced that Ernst vom Rath had died of wounds inflicted by a vicious Jew. They called for two minutes of radio silence. Once it was over, they announced that the Führer had said that no official actions would be taken against the Jews, but that citizens could use their own judgment. Everyone knew what that meant. Lars pulled the lorry to the side of the road.

  I brought my hands together under my nose and rocked back and forth. We had lost Ruth. Fräulein Ivona might already have killed her.

  “The newspaper,” Anton said. “Let’s call them again.”

  I called them again. Lars hovered outside like a nervous parent. Anton stayed in the lorry.

  “Thank god,” Herr Marceau said as soon as he heard me.

  “She called?” I dreaded hearing what she might have said.

  “She said that ‘the Jew bastard in Paris chose Ruth’s fate but—’”

  I gripped the phone tightly. “But what?”

  “She says that she’ll trade you for the girl.”

  Lars studied my face. I pressed the receiver tight against my ear, hoping that he could not hear. But I knew he already had.

  “Where?” I said.

  Lars shook his head. I turned so that I could not see him.

  “I don’t think you should go, Frau Zinsli.” I heard the crackle of Herr Marceau shuffling papers, his nervous habit. “It’s probably a trap.”

  Of course it was a trap. A trap that she had baited with something that she suspected I could not resist. I could not let Ruth die without trying to prevent it. “Where?”

  He gave me the address of the warehouse where Hahn had died. She intended to kill me there. It was the perfect place to do it. Dark, deserted, and the right site for an act of revenge.

  “Do you know where that is?” Herr Marceau asked.

  “Yes.” I still had nightmares about it. I had watched Hahn die there a hundred times in my sleep. In some dreams, I died there myself. To think I once thought that dreams do not come true.

  “Call the police,” he said. “Send them there.”

  I almost laughed. The police would not listen to an anonymous tip. “Thank you, Herr Marceau. Is there anything else?”

  “Good god, isn’t that enough?”

  I swallowed. “More than enough.”

  I broke the connection and turned to Lars.

  “You can’t go,” he said quickly. “She intends to kill you.”

  So, he had overheard the entire conversation. “If I stay away, she kills Ruth.”

  “If you go, she’ll kill you both,” he said. “I won’t allow that.”

  “You do not allow or forbid me to do things, Lars.” I knew he was frightened for me. I was frightened for me, too. But that did not change what I intended to do.

  Anton got out of the lorry and jogged over.

  “I cannot live with myself if something happens to Ruth because of me,” I said. “You know that.”

  “She knows it, too.” Lars jammed his hands into his pockets.

  Anton took my hand. “What’s going on?”

  “You explain it to him.” Lars stalked off. Perhaps a walk would calm him down.

  “Anton,” I began. “Fräulein Ivona called the newspaper and left a message.”

  I had to think of someplace safe to stash him. Herr Keller’s, perhaps?

  “What message? Is Ruth all right?” He could tell how serious things were.

  “She said—”

  Before I could finish the sentence, the lorry roared into life.

  Lars drove off and left us alone in the dark.

  I ran a few steps before realizing the futility of trying to catch him on foot. I stood in the street cursing him until I remembered Anton.

  He stared at me with his jaw hanging open, too surprised to speak. He was getting quite an education this trip.

  As soon as I calmed down enough to think, I called a taxi. While we waited, I explained to Anton that Lars had gone to get Ruth from Fräulein Ivona, and we were following.

  “How do you know?” Anton asked. “What if he just left?”

  That had not occurred to me. I shook my head. “I just do.”

  In my heart, I knew that Lars had realized the futility of arguing and taken matters into his own hands. If someone had to walk into a trap, he chose himself. I viewed his action with equal parts of love and fury.

  Anything that was going to happen would have happened before we arrived. And I did not think I could bear it if another man I loved died for me.

  The taxi driver did not want to take us to a warehouse so late at night, but agreed after I said that I would double his fare, which took eve
ry pfennig I had. When we arrived, the taxi dropped us off and disappeared with the squealing of tires.

  I pushed Anton behind me, drew the Vis from my satchel, and approached the warehouse.

  Lars stepped out of the shadows. “Don’t bother.”

  I holstered the Vis. If he did not need a gun drawn, I probably did not need one either.

  “God damn you!” I yanked Lars into a tight embrace. He was alive. That was the most important thing.

  Lars gave me a quick smile. He pulled us both back toward the lorry, practically shoved us in, and drove off. Only when the warehouse was well behind us did he speak.

  “She never showed up,” he said. “She left you a note on the front of the warehouse door. I’ve checked around. I don’t think she went inside.”

  He handed me a folded sheet of white paper written in the blocky printing of the letters I had received at the paper. I turned on the overhead light and held the paper where Anton could not see it. The watermark matched the other letters that Fräulein Ivona had sent.

  My dear little Frau Zinsli,

  You have been a wilier prey than I expected. I can see why Lars and my father were attracted to you. Both underestimated you, but I won’t make their mistake.

  I learned much about you, my dear, in the scant time we were together. I once thought to turn you in to the Gestapo so you could face the justice of the Reich.

  But now I know that it will be worse for you to hear of the little girl’s death. I can only imagine how the death of your friend must haunt you.

  That was an accident. I intended to wait for you there, but he wanted to protect you, so … I panicked afterwards and took the girl, but it turns out that was my best decision of all.

  She looks so very Aryan, doesn’t she? Aryan enough to support a charge of blood libel. It has been a long time since the Jews have paid for their crimes. After tonight, we will rain down misfortune on all the Jews in Berlin.

  Don’t worry. I’m not yet done with you. Or that annoying son of yours. Or Lars.

  Until later,

  I

  I dropped the letter back in Lars’s lap, wanting it as far away from Anton as possible. I turned off the overhead light and took Anton’s hand. If she could, Fräulein Ivona would make good on her threats. She would kill Ruth, and she would kill Anton.

  I stared into the blackness rushing toward us on the other side of the windshield. We would never be safe from her. She intended to torture me by killing my loved ones, then me. How could I find Ruth? How could I protect Anton?

  “Where are we going?” Anton asked.

  “To Populov’s warehouse,” Lars said. “In a few hours, I’ll have the compartment installed. We can get out of Germany and decide what to do somewhere safe.”

  “What about Ruth?” Streetlamps slid by outside, but beyond that, there was little to see. He drove so fast, I worried that a policeman would stop him.

  “I am so sorry, Spatz, but there is nothing that we can do. We’ve spent the whole day thinking and searching. We don’t know where Ivona is.”

  “She mentioned blood libel.” I kept my voice even with an effort. I did not want Anton to know how frightened I was.

  “What’s blood libel?” Anton asked.

  “Blood libel is an accusation that Jews kill Christian children to use their blood in their Passover bread,” I said.

  “Is it true?” he asked, aghast.

  “No,” I said, “but thousands of Jews have been murdered because of it. Which means the results are real, even if the accusation is not.”

  “What does it mean for Ruth?” Anton pulled his knees up to his chin.

  It meant that Fräulein Ivona intended to kill her, probably drain her blood into a bowl, and leave the body somewhere where the Jews would be blamed. But where?

  “Well?” Anton hugged his knees and looked at me.

  “A synagogue,” I said. There was little I could do to shield him from the truth now. “She intends to kill Ruth in a synagogue and leave her body there to be discovered.”

  “Assuming that were true.” Lars looked behind us again, probably checking to see if we were being followed. “There are nineteen synagogues in Berlin.”

  “How do you know that?” I asked.

  “I was in the SS.” He took a quick left turn and I grabbed the dash to keep from plowing into him. “You did not think we counted?”

  “Which synagogue would she pick?” I asked Lars. It was a slender hope, but it was the only one that we had.

  “I’ve no idea,” he said. “It never came up in conversation.”

  “Bronislawa Hahn died a month ago,” I mused.

  “I doubt that they had a service in a synagogue for her,” Lars said.

  “Of course not,” I snapped. “She was Catholic.”

  “How do you know that?” he asked, surprised. “Did Ivona tell you that she was Catholic?”

  “Did she ever say that she was Catholic?” I asked Anton.

  He shook his head. “Not to me.”

  I thought back to our conversations. Lars kept driving. Fräulein Ivona had never mentioned her religion. Most Berliners were Protestant, so why did I think she was Catholic? I ran over the things she had told me about herself, her father, and her mother. The nuns. “She said that the nuns were very kind to her mother before she died.”

  “Nuns?” Anton asked.

  “Only Catholics have nuns.” I had an idea. “Take us to Saint Hedwig’s Hospital.”

  “Why?” Lars asked.

  “There are two Catholic hospitals in Berlin with nuns in attendance. Saint Hedwig’s is next to the Neue Synagogue. The largest synagogue in Berlin.”

  Lars turned right so abruptly that Anton slammed into the door.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  He sat up. “I am not made of glass.”

  “She might not be there,” Lars said.

  But we both knew that it made sense. “It is a place to start. And it is all we have.”

  “Have you ever been inside?” Lars asked.

  “Of course. It is a Berlin landmark. You have not?”

  “I’ve never been in a synagogue. Why would I go?”

  His SS past rankled. “Because it is beautiful.”

  “Yes, Spatz,” he said. “I’m certain it is. Could you describe it for me? Especially the entrances and exits.”

  I closed my eyes. “The front door is on Oranienburgerstrasse. After you enter, you come into a large hall. There are stairs on both sides to the women’s section upstairs. If you stay downstairs and head for the back, there are a couple of smaller halls before you get to the main one. Stools on either side with an aisle up the middle. At the back is the Ark. The Ark is on a kind of stage. With her flair for the dramatic, I think that is where she would … take Ruth.”

  “Windows?”

  “Yes. Windows line both sides of the main hall. I think there is a side entrance on the left halfway down, and a rear entrance that opens onto the back, near the Ark and the room where weddings are performed.”

  “I’ll go in through the back,” Lars said. “It’s closest to the Ark. I won’t have to go through the whole open hall.”

  “Fine,” I said. “I will follow.”

  “This is not something for a civilian,” Lars said. “She is armed. She has a hostage.”

  I did not pretend to mull that over. Logically, he was correct, but I had no intention of waiting in the lorry and hoping for the best. I took the Vis out of the glove box and awkwardly checked that it was loaded with my left hand, wishing again that I had the use of my right arm.

  29

  We sped down Oranienburgerstrasse. Shouting men thronged the sidewalks. They had heard Hitler’s veiled call to arms, too.

  Lars drove past them and on to the synagogue.

  “Right there!” I pointed.

  He mashed on the brakes, and the lorry stopped so suddenly, it stalled. He started it again and drove more decorously past the opulent Moorish-styl
e synagogue.

  A crowd had gathered there. A group of men, some in uniforms and some in civilian clothing, milled on the sidewalk. Many carried torches. Mounted police had joined them. A gray and a chestnut horse shifted in the crowd. A fire truck passed us and parked. We drove past the crowd before parking behind another Opel Blitz lorry.

  I craned my neck around to study the mob. “They are going to burn the synagogue.”

  “Why do they have a fire truck?” Anton asked.

  I looked at the buildings built flush against the synagogue. It was horrible, and it made perfect sense, if one thought like a Nazi. “Those buildings are not Jewish-owned, I suspect. They will let the synagogue burn, but they will try to save the buildings around it.”

  “This complicates matters.” Lars tapped his fingers against the steering wheel.

  I reached over Anton and opened his door. We climbed out into the cold night. If Ruth was in the building, Fräulein Ivona would be found soon. We had to go in now.

  No one in the mob noticed us. They probably thought that we had come to enjoy their spectacle of hate.

  “Anton,” I said. “Stay with the lorry.”

  He did not look any more pleased about this news than I had when Lars told me the same thing. “But—”

  “You must cover my retreat,” Lars said. “When we come out, we might not have much time.”

  Anton nodded, and I was again struck by how easily Lars convinced him to follow orders. I wondered what Lars had tricked me into against my better judgment, but came up with nothing. I had known what I was doing all the time, for better or for worse. Lars handed Anton a gun.

  “If you see Ivona,” Lars said. “Shoot her.”

  Anton’s eyes grew round. He hefted the gun in his hands, looking young. I wished again that I had left him in Switzerland.

  “No.” I took the gun away from him. “Just run.”

  I had formulated a plan for him in the lorry. I gave him quick directions to the Swiss embassy. “Stay out front. If I am not there in two hours, go in and tell them that you are a Swiss citizen named Anton Zinsli. You sneaked across the border on a dare. Tell them to call Boris. He will get you out.”

  Lars looked impressed with my plan for Anton, but in truth it was sheer desperation. On top of everything else, I was not certain that Boris could get Anton out, even with his expensive lawyers. Boris himself was wanted by the Gestapo, but I knew he would do everything that he could. If things went that badly, he was the best hope that Anton had.