“I’ll steal one of those horses.” Anton gestured to the police mounts now tethered a short distance away, riders gone to join the mob. I gave him a worried look. He had stolen horses once before, on a dare.
“Don’t do anything fancy,” Lars said. “Just run.”
I gave Lars’s gun back to him and stuck the Vis in my pocket. It pulled my dress out of shape, but I had no belt to tuck it into. I glanced once more at the shouting men brandishing torches.
“Spatz,” Lars said. “Stay here. Please.”
I was not a lady out of the Middle Ages, ready to send a knight into battle for me. I would run the risks he did, or I could never live with myself after. We both knew that I had no intention of staying. Two of us might be more successful than one. Our lives, and Ruth’s and Anton’s, might depend on that success.
“Stay on my left, and let me go in first,” he said finally.
That I would do.
I hugged Anton hard. “We will be back soon.”
He sucked in his lower lip as he always did when he tried not to cry, and held out a hand for Lars to shake.
Lars shook his hand. “Mind the retreat, Anton. I truly need you here.”
I hoped that would be enough to keep Anton in place.
Lars started toward the synagogue. As I had been told, I stayed on his left side.
The crowd clearly readied itself to storm the synagogue, but they were more organized than I had expected. They behaved more like a unit of soldiers than like a mob. A man in front exhorted them for patience. Even though he wore no uniform, I sensed that he was their commanding officer.
We circled the outside of the crowd, slipped around the block and to the back of the synagogue. Through the back window, a light flickered. The eternal flame. Soon, I predicted, it would be extinguished.
I gripped Lars’s tense arm. “She does not expect us. With the noise of the crowd, we may slip in undetected.”
He drew a stag-handle knife with a dull nickel blade out of his boot. It was short, about twenty centimeters from handle to tip; half of that was blade. “It’s a trench knife. I’ve had it since the War.” He handed it to me handle first. “I keep it sharp.”
I weighed it in my palm. I had no boot to stuff it into. Instead, I carefully slipped it blade first into my cast at the wrist. He winced. It slid in easily, stopping before my elbow. Uncomfortable, but reassuring, rather like my relationship with Lars.
“If you have to,” I said, “could you kill her?”
He hesitated. “I will do what I have to do to keep Ruth safe. Or you.”
I did not believe him. He had some kind of feelings for her, whether he admitted it or not. And those feelings might be enough to make him pause. I knew the cost of killing a human in cold blood. I still woke screaming from nightmares where I killed Hahn, and I would never again forget the face of the Gestapo man lying in the gravel next to the car, but if it came down to it, I would do what had to be done. Killing Hahn had saved my life and the lives of who knew how many others. Killing Fräulein Ivona to save Ruth came with a cost that I would pay. But hopefully, it would not come to that.
A shadow crossed in front of the eternal flame. Someone was inside the synagogue. Fräulein Ivona?
We crept to the imposing back door. Not so dramatic as the front, it was still twice as tall as I. I tried the handle. Unlocked. Lars shouldered past me and opened it. The shouting of the crowd was quieter here, but still loud enough to mask our approach.
I slipped off my shoes and left them by the back door. The hard stone, cold under my feet, rendered my footsteps soundless.
Lars was ahead of me, moving sideways through the oval-shaped room, his boots quiet, too. I followed close behind until we stood in the back corner of the main hall. Arched ceilings soared above us. Light from the eternal flame cast a dull glow. It burned around the corner.
I turned left toward the light. Ruth lay on her back atop the Ark, a few meters away. She wore a simple white dress and shiny patent leather shoes. Her long blond hair hung across her face. I hoped that she was still alive. Next to her sat a ceramic bowl with a razor next to it. Next to that a Luger. There was no sign of Fräulein Ivona.
“Ruth?” I whispered. She turned her head toward me, eyes shining in the candlelight. She was alive. I sighed with relief. I beckoned for her to come to me. As quietly as I could, I crept closer.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Lars motion for me to stop. I did.
Ruth sat up and looked behind her. Fräulein Ivona stood there with the Luger pointed straight at me. She had been kneeling behind the Ark. With the other hand, she scooped up Ruth and held her in front of her like a shield. She balanced Ruth in the crook of her elbow. In her hand glittered the razor.
“Hello!” Fräulein Ivona cried cheerfully. “This could not go better!”
I could not shoot her without harming Ruth. I was no marksman. But Lars was.
She pressed her elbow harder against Ruth’s throat. “I can crush her trachea. I did it to a pig once.”
A shot whistled past my head. Lars. He missed.
In almost the same instant, Fräulein Ivona swiveled the Luger toward him and shot. He thudded to the floor. Please, I begged silently, don’t let Lars die.
Before I had time to react, the Luger was aimed at me again.
“Drop the Vis,” she said. “We don’t want the girl to be hurt early.”
I complied, eyes never leaving Ruth. She stared at me with wide eyes, too frightened to speak. “Please, Fräulein Ivona. She is only a child.”
“She is only a Jew.” She tightened her grip on Ruth. The child gasped for air.
“She is just a little girl.” I took one slow step toward them, then another. Unless Lars was seriously wounded, he would try again. But could he shoot her, in spite of his determined words earlier? I did not believe that he had missed by accident, even if he did not know it.
“Don’t come any closer,” she said. “I can crush her throat long before you reach me.”
Ruth whimpered and twisted. Fräulein Ivona was correct. Ruth would be dead before I made it to her. I stopped.
“Be still,” she said sharply. Ruth went limp. “I chloroformed her earlier. I’ll do it again soon. She won’t feel a thing. It will just be like going to sleep.”
Tears trickled from Ruth’s eyes, but she stayed very still.
“How about we work out a trade?” I said. “Let the girl go, and I will come up there unarmed and lie down on the Ark in her place.”
Ruth gaped at me.
“I don’t need you here,” she said. “I need a child.”
I swallowed. I had to save Ruth. Nothing else mattered.
“This isn’t mere sport, like hunting.” She shook Ruth. “When they find the child’s body and the basin of blood next to her, it will start a pogrom like we haven’t seen since the Middle Ages.”
I feared that the world was poised to see that anyway.
Fräulein Ivona shook her head, hair still perfectly combed. “My father will see that I am strong. He will be proud of me. At last.”
“Ivona,” I said softly. “Your father is dead.”
She glared at me. “By your hand. You’ll be on this altar soon enough. My father was a great man, and his death won’t go unavenged. Then he will forgive me for my weaknesses.”
Two deaths on my conscience. “It was self-defense. There is nothing to avenge.”
Fräulein Ivona tightened her grip on Ruth, and the little girl cried out. “It might have meant nothing to you, but not to me.”
I calculated the distance between us again. I would not make it before she killed Ruth. “Fräulein Ivona, your father—”
Something smashed through the side window several meters away. Broken glass crashed to the floor. Ruth flinched. I smelled gasoline. I looked to see what had come through the window. A bottle, and stuffed in its neck was a flaming piece of fabric.
“It has begun.” Fräulein Ivona smiled beatifically and reach
ed for the razor. I tensed. If she moved that razor toward Ruth’s throat, I would have to intervene, no matter the risk.
“The police know that Ruth is missing,” I said desperately. “They have already started an investigation. They will identify her body and know that she is Jewish, not Aryan. Your plan is flawed.”
A wooden chair ignited. Then another.
Fräulein Ivona laughed. “Such a clever tongue.”
“It speaks the truth,” I said. “Let her go. She and I will leave by the back door. No one need ever know that we were here.”
Fräulein Ivona gestured around the room with the razor. “I think you put too much faith in the police. They won’t investigate her disappearance. They don’t care.”
Fire crackled behind me. Fräulein Ivona looked past me at the flames, as transfixed as she had been in the doctor’s office. This distraction was my only chance.
I charged her and grabbed the Luger. Its barrel was still hot from shooting Lars. With one twist, I yanked it out of her hands and threw it into the burning synagogue.
Fräulein Ivona rolled Ruth down toward the razor in her left hand.
I pushed my cast between Ruth’s throat and the razor. With the other hand, I yanked Ruth out of Fräulein Ivona’s grasp and dropped her to the floor. She ran into the smoke.
Before I could follow, the razor sliced through my cast and clanked against metal. The trench knife.
I ripped the knife out of my cast and slashed her upper arm, aiming for the brachial artery. The blow knocked her down to the side.
We grappled. She was younger and stronger than I, but the blood spurting out of her arm weakened her. As I had hoped, I had severed the artery.
“You will bleed out in under a minute,” I told her. “Stop.”
She lay still, probably because she had lost too much blood to struggle further. I thought of two nights ago when I had held Paul’s blood in. I had saved him, only for her to kill him. I wanted to let go, but I pressed hard against her severed artery. I could still save her, as I had saved Paul.
Behind us, the wooden seats in the synagogue crackled with bright flames. Acrid smoke billowed toward us. I stifled a cough.
“Ruth?” I called. No answer.
“What now?” Fräulein Ivona asked.
“If I let go, you die,” I said. “Stay still, and you might live.”
She laughed. “I didn’t think you had it in you to be a killer.”
“I am no killer.”
“But you are,” she said. “You murdered my father.”
My good hand began to go numb. “Self-defense.”
Her lips curved into a pale smile. “Everyone’s a killer.”
Not far away, Ruth coughed weakly. I wished I knew how near the flames were, but I could not afford to look.
“He is hurt,” Ruth’s childish voice called. “Like my Vati.”
She had watched her father die. Ruth would carry that memory for the rest of her life. I glanced back into the smoke, searching for Ruth.
The second I was distracted, Fräulein Ivona twisted out of my grip.
Blood pumped out of her shoulder, drenching her white shirt. I struggled to put pressure on her wound, but it was too late. She went limp under me.
I coughed. My eyes teared in the smoke.
“Ruth?” I called. “Lars? Where are you?”
“Here!” piped up Ruth.
I followed the sound of her voice. She stood next to a crumpled form. Lars.
I pulled Lars’s coat back. Blood stained his chest. I grabbed the cloth covering the Ark with my casted hand. The ceramic bowl fell to the ground and shattered. Ruth yelped, but she kept hold of Lars’s hand. I felt the edge of the cloth, sturdy and hemmed. It would not tear so easily as Paul’s worn pillowcase had.
I held it in one hand and turned my attention to Lars. Flickering light from the eternal flame revealed a bullet hole below his left clavicle. Blood frothed out. I heard a sucking sound when he breathed. The bullet had punctured his lung.
His dark eyes watched me from a face gone pale as ashes. I kept my face impassive so he would not know how frightened I was. I slid one hand under his armpit and around to his back. No exit wound.
I reached behind me for the trench knife and used it to cut the edge of the cloth, then tore off a strip.
“Good girl, Ruth.” While I talked, I made a quick bandage for Lars. “In just a minute, we can go and visit your Opa. Can you wait one more minute?”
She stuck the corner of her green blanket in her mouth and nodded. I folded the bandage quickly. Fräulein Ivona’s slice through my cast had made it easier to move, if more painful.
“Ivona?” Lars coughed and blood stained his lips.
I glanced back to where she lay unmoving on the floor. Her chest no longer rose and fell.
“Departed.” I hated to say dead in front of Ruth. She had already seen too much death in her short life.
Lars knew what I meant.
“Not your fault.” I lay the bandage on his chest. “Mine.”
“Sorry.”
“Me, too.” She was correct. I was a killer. She and her father had set up the circumstances, but I had killed. Three times. “Now, hush.”
He nodded.
“Breathe out and hold your breath.”
He complied. As soon as the air was out of the lung, I tied the bandage tight across his chest.
“Breathe,” I whispered.
He did. The wound sounded mostly closed, for now. I kept both hands pressed against it. Smoke filled the synagogue. I could see barely a meter in front of me. If I did not get him to a doctor soon, he would die. Even if I did, he might die anyway.
Lars put his hands on top of mine and pressed on the bandage. He jerked his head toward Ruth. I took my hands away, and he kept applying pressure.
“Ruth?” I asked. “Are you hurt?”
She shook her head. I patted her all over quickly, just to be sure. Blood streaked her once white dress, but it was Lars’s. Physically, she was unharmed. That at least.
How could I get them out of the synagogue before it burned down? Flames filled the main hall. Something else crashed through the window. Glass rained onto the floor.
“Take Ruth,” Lars coughed.
He knew how futile it would be to try to save him, too. But how could I leave him? I cradled her against my chest and stood. If I left him, he would die. If I did not, we might all die.
30
I set Ruth on her feet. I saw the reflection of the flames behind us in her eyes.
“Ruth?” I said. “Hold on to my dress and don’t let go. Can you do that?”
She gripped a fistful of my skirt.
I bent my legs, draped Lars’s arm over my shoulder, and hoisted him to his feet. I knew that if he’d had any breath, he would have argued. But he did not.
We stumbled to the back door of the synagogue. Ruth doggedly kept hold. The heat of the flames beat against my back. Smoke boiled around us.
Ruth coughed. She wiped her eyes with her green blanket. But she did not let go.
A few more steps and we reached the door.
“Ruth,” I said. “Please push on it for me.”
She opened the door. I dragged Lars through.
I gulped deep breaths of the fresh air. The grass felt cool on my bare feet.
Lars sagged against me. I had no time to catch my breath. I hauled him one step, then another. Anton waited with the lorry. All we had to do was get there.
My legs threatened to give out. Ruth hung on my dress, adding her little weight to Lars’s. Just a few more steps.
I stopped and raised my head to look for the lorry. It was where we had left it. “Anton?” I called softly.
He did not answer.
I hauled Lars closer.
Smoke curled out of the cab of the lorry.
It was on fire.
I lowered Lars to the ground. Ruth clung to me like a monkey. I hefted her onto my hip and ran to the lorry.
The mob rushed the burning synagogue. No one paid us any heed.
“Anton!” I screamed.
“Here!” he called.
Shadows approached, too big to be Anton. “Where?”
“Mother?” Anton led a chestnut horse out of the darkness. Next to it was the dapple gray. He had stolen the police horses, just as he said he would. I wanted to kiss him. “When the lorry caught fire, I knew we would need something else.”
“Good.” For this, I would not lecture him later.
“Where’s Lars?”
“Wounded.” I handed him Ruth. “This is Ruth.”
He held her on one hip. “Hello, Ruth,” he said softly. “Do you like horses?”
She nodded.
I took the leather reins and led the gray to Lars. Well trained, the animal flared its nostrils at the smell of blood, but did not bolt.
When I hefted Lars upright, he groaned. Anton hurried to help. Together we hoisted Lars on my mount. Anton held him on the horse while I swung up behind. Lars slumped in front of me, but he had enough strength to keep his seat, at least for a while. He seemed to breathe better sitting up. Anton got Ruth on the other horse on his own.
Even though barely conscious, Lars settled into the rhythm of the horse. I hoped that the riding of his childhood might save his life now. We galloped through the grounds of Saint Hedwig’s Hospital like something out of a Karl May book.
“No,” Lars said weakly. “Questions.”
He was correct. I could not ride up to the hospital on stolen police mounts with a gunshot victim and a child in a bloody dress. We would all be arrested. I turned my horse’s head toward the Jewish quarter. I knew only one doctor who would help without asking questions.
Behind us, the synagogue blazed, but the fire truck already strove to put it out. I hoped that they would save it.
We galloped down cobblestone streets, turning heads. Anton rode close to my right flank, holding Ruth’s waist with one hand and the reins with the other. As always, he was most agile and at ease on a horse.
A City of Broken Glass (Hannah Vogel) Page 28