by Andie Newton
‘Ella, it’s me,’ he said, and I looked up from the ground. ‘Herr Coburg.’ My aunt’s trusted art supplier—the last person I expected to see. He shook my shoulder with the same meaty hand that had grabbed me, his body ballooning as he bent down. ‘I thought you saw me.’ His breath smelled of sausage, and his cologne stunk like an old man’s.
I swallowed, wetting my dry throat. ‘Herr Coburg…’ I scraped myself off the ground. ‘I… I fell.’ The ox statue marking the entrance to the meat halls towered over us and almost looked alive, the way his tail lay near his feet and his body, chiselled, with eyes that bulged from its face. I felt dizzy staring at it.
‘Yes!’ He laughed, and the ox’s horns seemed to jut straight from his ears. ‘You did fall!’
Three Gestapo officers suddenly surrounded us, sharp-brimmed hats, leather shoulder straps, slate-coloured double-breasted trench coats that hung longer than their knees. I lost my balance from standing in one heel and staring at the ox, and fell into the arms of one of the officers. He scowled, dropping his club to catch me, one eye glaring, before tossing me to my feet like a dog.
‘Sorry.’ I winced, and he straightened his jacket.
A different officer had picked up my detached heel and juggled it in his hands. Early thirties, razor-sharp jaw, silver eyes that matched the glint on his belt knife. ‘Here you are, fräulein. Looks like you dropped this.’
I reached for my heel, but he didn’t let go right away. I felt his gaze as I tugged on it, his eyes swooping across my chest like a heavy hand.
‘You can call me Muller.’
I gulped. ‘Officer Muller, pleasure to meet you.’
He smiled from ear to ear, exposing a disturbing set of blazing white teeth. ‘And you dropped this too.’ He pulled back the flap of his coat just below his waist. Hooked on a silver buckle, next to a palm-sized bulge in his trousers, was the rest of my shoe. He shifted his hip and it fell off.
They laughed when I went to snatch it from the ground.
‘Coburg, you know this girl?’ the third officer said, patting his shoulder.
They know each other?
He was a tall but stout man with an egg-shaped belly, hooded eyes, and a weather-beaten face. There was a red band of paper wrapped around his cigar and he played with it like a ring around his finger. The tips of his moustache fluttered in the gentle wind and it reminded me of my uncle, though with his wide, caterpillar brow and imposing stature he looked more like Wilhelm II.
‘Yes, Dietrich. I do,’ Coburg said through stained, brown teeth. He twirled a cane in the air with his spotted hand. ‘Gentleman, this is Ella Von Bruen. She works at one of my antiques shops.’
Of course, it wasn’t his shop at all, and Von Bruen was my aunt’s surname, not mine. But since he gave my aunt first pick of his inventory, I had to let some things slide.
Dietrich took three short puffs from his cigar and sneered. ‘Where exactly were you headed this morning, fräulein?’ He stepped closer, exhaling with flared nostrils. I acted as if I didn’t hear him and attempted to straighten my coat, my elbow poking him mid-belly where his buttons gaped into diamond-shaped holes.
‘Yes,’ Muller said. ‘Where could such a pretty—’ he cleared his throat ‘—girl be off to so early in the morning?’ His words felt heavy like syrup, trapping me in place.
Coburg squinted. ‘Bridget closed the shop today, Ella. You know that, don’t you?’ He tugged on my uniform tie, pulling it out from under my coat. ‘And League meetings are much later in the day.’
This was the first time I’d been questioned when I actually had something to hide. For a moment I thought ignorance would save me, so I kept messing with my coat. But when I glanced up they were taking notes.
There had been only one other time I felt that way, trapped and cornered. When I was thirteen, Frau Dankwart caught me drawing a picture of Hitler dressed like a little girl—pink ribbon in his hair, a bonnet, and even a dress. She whipped my knuckles in front of the entire Youth League. But that wasn’t the unpleasant part: it was feeling trapped under the suspicious eye of Frau Dankwart as she stood over me, questioning me, demanding I explain myself as I tried to hide the drawing under my hand.
I struggled to come up with a story and then coughed to buy some time. Only Muller started patting my back. ‘You all right?’ His voice sounded concerned, but not genuine. Then he smacked his palm in between my shoulder blades, hard, as if he were used to hitting a woman in such ways. I squeezed my eyes shut, wondering how long I could keep up the coughing charade with him pounding on my back, when a bus lurched to a stop just a few feet away.
My skirt fluttered from a burst of exhaust. Doors flapped open, and people scurried out like ants onto the pavement. Dietrich pointed his cigar at a grey-haired man carrying a black case. Muller dropped his arm, and I slipped away, toddling down the stairs into the meat halls as fast as I could wearing uneven shoes.
I weaved in and out of hanging carcasses, trying to find a safe spot to hide, when a butcher surprised me, coming around the side of a blue-stamped deer. He glanced at my shoes, one with a heel, the other flat, and then to the machete lying on a garnet stained table before walking away. The machete.
My whole body straightened.
Claudia always said that if something doesn’t work right, you should change it into something that does. I laid my shoe on the table; I hadn’t time to think about it, I simply grabbed the knife, squeezing the handle with ten white knuckles. Slam!
The heel snapped free like a bone from its joint, rolled off the table and fell to the ground, but I was already making my way into the square, waving my yellow scarf around as red-and-white striped tents opened with a flap, ready for business.
I wasn’t sure what would happen—would Wilhelm walk right up to me? Would he pass a note instead? I sat down on the steps of the Schöner Brunnen, under its Gothic spire, tucked my skirt under my thighs, and waited—waited for Wilhelm, waited for a sign.
Hours passed. Nothing.
Daytime turned into the afternoon, and the sun had disappeared behind a blanket of grey clouds. A raindrop fell on my shoulder—then another and another until it started pouring.
And I realized, something had gone terribly wrong.
3
Claudia told me not to leave the square with the key in my pocket, but there I was, standing in the courtyard of Claudia’s old house in the Am Oberg, staring at the back door with my feet sinking into mud. Maybe the Jews are already gone? I thumbed through probable scenarios like pages in a book. The more quiet seconds I stood looking at the house, thinking about what to do, the harder my chest pounded. I needed to do this or go home. After all, it was late. I was sure I had missed my League meeting, and my aunt was probably wondering where I was.
My heart moved into my ears, ebbing and thumping, and I slid the key into the lock. Two clinks and a shove later, the door creaked open with a dull moan. I left my shoes in the mud and stepped into the room. When my bare feet hit the wood floor, they stuck to it like a pair of clammy dead fish.
‘Hallo,’ I whispered. ‘Claudia sent me.’
A few moments passed before I heard the pop of snapping floorboards. My eyes swung to the ground, searching for the noise. A little old lady hobbled out from the darkness. She had bottle-thick glasses and frizzy, grey hair that hadn’t been set in days; some parts lay flat, other parts curled behind her ears. But as she stepped out from behind the velvety blue curtains, it was the relief in her eyes I noticed first, and my heart stopped pounding so much.
She clutched her chest. ‘Oh, I thought we were forgotten!’
An old man climbed out from behind the divan. ‘Not so fast, Maria.’ He shuffled toward me, reaching into the inside pocket of his wool jacket to pull out a pair of round spectacles. Not the type a grandfather would wear, but the type I had seen young aristocrats wear with leather ear wraps. Slicks of silver-streaked hair hung over his eyes as he fitted them to his head. ‘Another girl?’ He leaned forwar
d, taking a long, scrutinizing look at me.
A young woman slid out from along the baseboards and scurried to his side. ‘We’re rescued!’ She was in her mid-twenties with wavy brown hair pinned behind her ears with gold, glittery clips. I backed up into the crack of the door, feeling every bit of my drab uniform hidden under my coat, thinking if she were in one of my magazines, I’d clip her out and paste her to my wall.
‘Don’t be afraid,’ she said, holding her hand out as if trying to catch a bird. ‘We’re not going to eat you.’
A man, who I thought might be her father, rested muscular hands on her shoulders. ‘Well, not until we know your name at least,’ he said.
‘Karl!’ The old lady snapped. ‘Don’t tease the poor thing. She’s here to help us, after all.’
‘Would everyone shut up?’ The old man growled as he spoke. ‘She hasn’t told us why she’s here.’ He dissected me with his eyes, moving his mouth back-and-forth as if he was chewing on something tough and needed to spit.
‘I’m sorry.’ I cleared my throat, not sure what to say other than the truth. ‘I didn’t know what to expect when I got here.’
‘Expect?’ he said. ‘Four people in a house with no lights or food, that’s what you can expect!’
I backed up further into the crack.
Karl touched the old man’s shoulder. ‘Papa, Mama is right,’ he said. ‘Let’s give her a chance to speak.’
Maria gently took my hands and moved me away from the door. ‘We’re the Kortens, and we’ve been waiting for you all day.’ She gazed into my eyes batting sparse lashes, and I saw my reflection in the lenses of her glasses. ‘What’s your name, dear?’ Her fingers curled around mine.
‘I’m… Sascha.’ I stuttered when I said my name. Only Auntie called me Sascha.
The old man grumbled. ‘That’s a boy’s name.’
Maria put her arm around the girl’s shoulders and pulled her forward. ‘This is my granddaughter, Elsie. My son Karl is her Papa, and, well, you probably have guessed this old man giving you the treatment is my husband, Bart,’ she said, giving him a scowl.
Bart took a step back and his eyes wandered to the ground. ‘You understand though, right, fräulein?’
His words sounded like an apology, and I accepted it with a nod.
They talked about freedom and hugged each other, but my thoughts slowly drowned out their voices when I realized I hadn’t thought things through. Where should I take them? They can’t stay here. It’s not safe. The renters could be here any minute. My face hardened and felt as plastic as a cheap doll’s frozen in a quizzical expression.
Then something odd happened. A rumble in the distance—akin to a million boulders hurling down the street. Shouting voices zigzagged into a perverse roar. A raid. We stood paralyzed like a handful of mice shining in a cat’s eye.
Elsie pointed a shaking finger at the wall.
Against the floral wallpaper a silhouetted string of gingerbread-shaped figures marched military-like with what looked like guns jutting from their bodies. A booming kick to the house next door made me jolt, and then the screams from those hiding inside waved like a shiver over us all. Men pleaded for their lives, and women cried for their babies. Crashing glass spraying across the stone step sounded like wet potato strings thrown into hot oil.
Then without warning, it just stopped.
‘The Reich!’ Elsie cried. ‘They’re going to get us!’
‘They’ll kill us before we get out of Nuremberg,’ Bart said.
My instinct was to hide, and my aunt’s shop wasn’t far away.
‘There’s an antiques shop a block from here. On Obere Schmiedgasse. It will have to work for now. Grab your things,’ I said, but everyone had already covered their heads with hoods and scarves before I finished talking.
We gathered quietly by the door, listening, waiting for the right moment to escape, and then snuck out the back.
The castle lights shone over the wall—too much light, I thought, too much light.
I slipped backward in my shoes, and Karl hurriedly scraped our footprints away with a rake he’d found propped against the fence. We reached the open street, but once there the sheer darkness of the city made us all stop in our tracks. Black figures scattered like insects, some ran, others hooded themselves with cloaks or ducked into alleyways. Then we heard the terrifying noise of a beating fist.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Elsie locked arms with me. Screams were everywhere—in the eaves, from the dark windows, and through doors that swung open from broken hinges.
‘It’s a roundup,’ Bart yelped.
A line of Gestapo marched down the road. They banged on doors before barrelling up staircases, all the way into the lofts, and then dragged the people from inside out into the street and into giant armoured trucks. They tore the women’s jewels from their necks and took money from the men’s pockets.
Karl pushed Elsie and me to keep moving, and we did; Bart and Maria followed just a step behind, through shards of glass that pierced the soles of our shoes.
Herr Rudin’s bakery next to Auntie’s shop was a sad sight. His front door lay in the street and a dark, cavernous hole marred by broken brick and toppled tables had replaced his display window. Fresh breads and strudel baskets rolled into the street; other bits sucked their way toward the back of his shop like a sinister void—Herr Rudin’s wife was a Jew.
My heart sank, thinking the Gestapo had dragged her away, and then raced when I heard them marching back toward us.
I snatched the spare keys from the window well and fumbled my way around the ring with heavy, rapid breaths. Bart and Maria stumbled into my backside, knocking my face into the door and the keys right out of my hand. With a pounding heart I picked them off the ground and started my search all over.
‘Hurry,’ Karl said, looking over his shoulder. ‘Open it!’
Maria and Elsie tapped my shoulders, each saying something different with urgent, almost tearful voices. Bart’s breath blew hot on my neck. ‘It’s that one,’ he said, trying to grab the keys.
The deadbolt clicked over and like dominoes we fell into the shop, one on top of the other, while the bell chimed wildly. Someone’s knee hit my back, another’s elbow jabbed my face. Elsie threw her arms around my neck, and I dragged her body away from a beam of light that shone through the window and streaked across the floor.
A voice yelled just outside the shop. ‘Aufhören! Stop!’ Two policemen rushed past the window and tackled someone to the ground, bones and flesh smacking against the pavement. I closed the door from the floor, and we scuttled along the dark wall toward the back of the shop and the basement.
We filed in blind with our hands on each other’s shoulders, down three stone steps I searched desperately for the light cord hanging from the ceiling and then pulled forcefully enough to break it when I found it. The snap of the light echoed off the wall like a struck match: something felt off.
The twinge in my spine twisted me around. The stove-sized cast iron door that led into the abandoned sixteenth-century beer cellar on the other side was cracked open a finger’s width from the wall. Its rusted latch had been replaced by a silver pin hook, and the blackhead screws that anchored it into the brick wall looked brand new. The door had been there for years, before I was born, but never in my life had I seen it open, until now.
‘That’s odd.’
Bart pushed Elsie to the side to get a closer look. ‘Odd? What’s odd?’
‘That door.’
‘What about it?’ he asked. ‘You act as if you didn’t know it was there. Didn’t you say you’ve been here before?’ Bart sounded condescending.
Maria adjusted her glasses with trembling hands. ‘Should we be alarmed, dear?’ She looked over the top of her lenses and squinted at the door.
‘No. I don’t think so.’ I pulled the door open and peeked inside but saw only darkness. A quick shiver bumped across my skin when I thought about the rats that lived in there. I clamped the d
oor shut. There was little I could do other than lock it with its pin hook. So that’s what I did.
‘Is everyone all right?’ I said.
‘You mean besides our damaged egos?’ Bart said. ‘I guess we’re all right.’ He shifted his eyes from wall to wall, rubbing his chin with one hand as if judging the basement’s security. Satisfied, he sat down on a bench carved into the wall, brushed the space off next to him with his hand and motioned for Maria. Their bodies fit snugly together like a puzzle.
There was a loud boom, as if someone had lit a stick of dynamite not far away. The floor shook from the blast. Then all went quiet. Elsie turned her back and covered her mouth with her hand, but I saw her torso bobbing up and down as she silently wept. Karl stood in the middle of the room with muscled arms braced between two wooden beams.
My stomach growled, and I’m sure I heard theirs too. ‘I’m going back up to get some food.’ I paused, waiting for a response, then Maria’s eyes slid upward.
‘Maybe you should wait a few minutes, dear. We just got down here. What if the police are still outside?’ I had seen the police arrest people before, and they worked fast, but something in her voice made me sit back down.
‘All right.’ My stomach growled again. ‘I’ll wait.’ My back scraped against the stone wall as I slid into a squat next to a few storage boxes. ‘When I go back out, I’m going to check for some blankets too.’
Karl nodded.
I started taking my coat off, pulling it down off my arms. Elsie’s glance turned into a stare, and then Karl’s and Bart’s while Maria blinked behind her large lenses at the sight of my Youth League uniform shining up before them, stiff black tie against my white shirt and the thick belt around my waist.
I put my coat back on, and they slowly looked away.
Bart pulled a white-faced watch from his pocket, the Kaiser’s image and the year 1914 engraved in the silver. I recognized it instantly as an award watch given to German officers for bravery. My uncle had one just like it, and I wondered how he’d got one.
‘You fought in the war?’