Peace League Survivors
The CBB -> Starting again at Sarres...
#1: Peace League Survivors Author: dackel, Location: Wolfenbuettel, Germany/Cambridge, England PostPosted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 4:27 pm

Peace League Survivors


“We, the girls of the Chalet School, hereby vow ourselves members of the Chalet School League. We swear faithfully to do all we can to promote peace between all countries. We will not believe any lies spoken about evil doings, but will try to get others to work for peace as we do. We will not betray this League to any enemy, whatever may happen to us. If it is possible, we will meet at least once a year. And we will always remember that though we belong to different lands, we are members of the Chalet School League of Peace.”
(The Chalet School in Exile)


1. The Linder’s War
Emmie Linders recited these words quietly to herself, as she had reminded herself to do at least once every day since she had left the Chalet School four years previously. Each sentence was punctuated by the loud bangs and metallic clatters of the assembly line. Each word was accompanied by a twisting motion as she bolted together two pieces of metal, which, several stages later, when they had traversed the whole line, became some part of a car engine. She had never understood which part.

The Linders had never had their own car. Her father’s firm had sent one to fetch him every morning, and the same car had brought him back in the evening. She had always been more interested in her father than the car. Emmie forced back the tears that still threatened to overwhelm her whenever she thought of her father. The Nazis had destroyed him. Six months after she had left the Chalet School, they had shut down his firm so that he had become unemployed, and he had been distraught, unable to come to terms with the shambles his life had suddenly become. Then further unhappiness came to him as his beloved wife developed a chest-cold, which, untended, had turned into pneumonia. Before they knew what was happening, she had died, and her grief-stricken husband had been left to cope alone until a mere week later, his heart had given out with the strain with living in a world he could no longer understand. Suddenly, within two weeks, Emmie and her sister Joanna had become orphans. Their kindly neighbours had comforted her, told her that at least her mother and father were together, and happy again, but Emmie just wanted them to come back.

The girl remembered Madame’s talk in the last term she had spent in the School on the Sonnalpe. Madame had told them all that they would need all their courage, but Emmie had not really understood until she had returned home, and had seen just how worried her parents were about Hitler and his party of fascists. The Anschluss had changed everything. Wien had looked much the same, except for the abominable swastikas, Emmie reflected bitterly, but it had felt like a different place. Emmie and Joanna had been taught by a private governess, a retired teacher who lived in the flat below their own, so they had not had to go a Nazi School just then, but they noticed the differences. The Hitler greeting, the way people looked at each other, the feeling of slight distrust which had crept into every conversation. And then Mutter had died, and Vater had followed him, and they had had to leave their beloved Wien to go and live in Germany with Onkel Johannes and Tante Marie-Louise. Everything had changed. Madame had told them they would have to be strong, but Emmie had not realised just what this meant, or how much strength she would need in the next years. Every morning, she hoped it would all just have been a nightmare, but every morning, it turned out to be true.

A loud bell rang for lunch break, and Emmie gratefully laid down her tools on the little bench next to the assembly line, built just for this purpose – Germans were always so methodical, so practical, she thought with a touch of wry humour, as she went to the little room of the factory floor which was used as a canteen. She unpacked the sandwiches which her aunt had made for her that morning, and began to eat.



The little bell above the shop door rang, and Johanna Linders turned around with a slightly fixed smile.

“Guten Tag, gnaedige Frau, how may I be of assistance?”

The lady explained that she needed a new saucepan, as her careless daughter had let the one she had boil dry, and it now it had a hole, silly girl, the house could have burned down, it wouldn’t have mattered that none of the bombs from those English had hit them yet, they might as well have done if the house was gone, and she’d been warned so many times about day dreaming, she’d never make it to anything, that she wouldn’t, she hadn’t even got any leading position in BDM…

Joanna sighed inwardly, and, turning away, went to the store-room to see if they had any saucepans left. As she did so, she grimaced at her fellow assistant Katja, who smiled sympathetically and rolled her eyes. Herr Maurer, the owner, despaired of the business which had run so well before the war began. He spent most of his time in his little office these days, working out the finances, and trying to get stock into the shop. He was a worried man. They hardly had anything these days; people just bought whatever was there and bartered most of the time.

Those with their own gardens were lucky; they could sell their produce on, or least make their ration cards stretch a bit further. At least Onkel Johannes was a doctor, and his wages were not that bad. And her aunt had been a nurse, so the women came to her for advice when they didn’t want to see the doctor, and those women usually brought something with them, eggs, maybe, or some fruit. Tante Marie-Louise had received many confidences before the war, and she was as tight-lipped as a priest about people’s problems and stories, but now those same people were beginning to look at her askance, trying to remember what exactly she knew about them that might sound bad, or worse; suspicious, if it were reported. It hadn’t been like that before. But now the Gestapo knew everything, and wanted to know more.

And they didn’t even have Karl to comfort them. He had been just eighteen when their parents had died, and, too young for the responsibility of looking after two teenage girls, had taken them to their aunt and uncle. They were very kind people, but it just wasn’t the same as being at home. And Nazism had been so much more obvious here. They had had to join the BDM, which made mockery of the guiding principles which stood so close to their hearts, and they had had to enter a Nazi school. Joanna counted herself lucky that she had Emmie, for with out her, she might have forgotten the text of the Peace League oath, and believed what the teachers had told them. Thank goodness for the School…

Joanna found a tiny saucepan in the furthest corner of the room, as usual, hiding on the top shelf, performed some gymnastics which would have made Miss Nalder proud, and, preparing herself for a lecture on service in shops these days, and the unavailability of everything, went back into the shop.

Once the vociferous woman had left, Joanna lent on the counter and wondered for the umpteenth time what she would be doing if she were still at the School. She’d have been able to start Lacrosse by now, and she’d be a Middle, not a Junior any more. After all, she was fifteen. She wished they could all just leave this place where such grief had come upon them, and go to England, rejoin the School, and pretend nothing had changed. And if they went to England, they might find Karl. She was sure they could keep a house. Emmie was seventeen now, and she’d be sixteen next year. Karl would be twenty-two by now. It had been his birthday the day before. They all just hoped he was all right. The Red Cross had let them know that he’d been shot down and injured in September ’40, but they hadn’t heard anything since. Surely the English would look after him, she told herself. He would be all right. She knew he wasn’t a Nazi, and had hated what the Luftwaffe had made him do. The English would appreciate that, she thought firmly.

“Katja, has Herr Maurer told you when the new wares are to come?” she asked, beginning a conversation to while away the time. Another three hours and she could leave at last.



Dr.Grundtbaum left his surgery, locking the door behind him, and made his way home, slowly wending his way through the twisted streets of Eisenheim, the small town where he had spent most his life. He had not had many patients that day, just some children suffering from stomach pains, most probably from an imbalanced diet, no wonder with the rationing these days; and a man who had broken his arm falling off a ladder. Poor old chap, he’d been sixty if he’d been a day, and shouldn’t have been trying to repair a broken drainpipe all on his own.

“I wouldn’t try it”, he thought, “and I am in better shape than Herr Baumgarten, although I’m older than he is.”

Where had all the young men suddenly disappeared to, he wondered. All swallowed by this war when they had hardly recovered from the last. How he hated war. He’d been a surgeon in the last one, and the things he’d seen. He shuddered to think about them. He had never told anyone, not his parents, his wife, and certainly not his sister, or his poor brother-in-law. Achim had only been sixty-five, and his wife had been younger. And yet they were both dead. They might not have been shot, he thought wearily, but the war had killed them as surely as if they been on the front lines. It had simply begun a lot earlier than anyone thought; gunfire was not all that made up a war.

He ran his fingers through his hair, deep in thought, so that he almost did not notice an old acquaintance walking up to him on the street. Herr Schmidt had gone to school with him, they had played Skaat together in the good old days, whatever did he want, they hadn’t spoken in quite some time, he was too busy running the small surgery, and Herr Schmidt, well, he was on the town council. Dr.Grundtbaum was about to greet him when he noticed that Herr Schmidt was staring straight ahead and not looking at him at all. The doctor half turned away, angry to be shunned in this way, and Herr Schmidt bumped into him. For a split second, they stared each other in the face.

“Verrat”, the other man muttered, “Betrayal.”

Then, doffing his hat in a perfectly executed apology, continued on his way, leaving the doctor gazing after him with his heart in his shoes, and a cold shiver going up and down his spine.
Aware that people were watching him, he quickly resumed his walk, his mind contemplating that one little word which had turned his world upside down.



Marie-Louise Grundtbaum fetched the plates from the sideboard to place them on the table ready for supper. Johannes and two girls would be home soon, and she liked to have everything set out so that they could eat punctually.

She was a great believer in punctuality. Nurses tended to be like that, she reflected.

She frowned as her thoughts turned towards the girls. They were such lovely girls, but she never knew if she was doing anything the way they liked it. They were much too polite to complain about anything, although she knew that they weren’t happy. Not surprising, poor Maedchen, losing both parents like that, and having to leave the School they no longer dared speak of.

Marie-Louise sighed, wishing she were younger, nearer to the girls in age. She wished she at least had experience with children, but none of her or her husband’s knowledge of medicine had sufficed to keep the children alive that she had born all those years ago.

At least they were not lacking in anything which ration cards could procure. And her husband was often paid in food, so they were not going hungry…yet. She remembered the last war too well. The hunger, the cold, the terror. She had thought she would never have to suffer through such a time again. “The war to end all wars”, that’s what she heard they’d called it. Hadn’t ended much, though.


Although she hated Hitler for what he had done to her poor brother-in-law, she had to agree that for a time, he had improved things. The victors of the last war had trodden Germany into the ground; they had even maintained the war was Germany’s fault. Well, she wasn’t political or anything, but she just couldn’t agree with that. And for a while, things had been better.

But now…it was worse than the last war. They’d been terrified, yes, but of the enemy and their weapons, their gas and their shells. They hadn’t been afraid of their own people. Her eyes darkened with pain as she considered the…rumours.

People...disappeared.

The Neumanns had been fetched one night. And Emmie had told her that Lena, the daughter, had not come to work since. She had not been a good worker, funny that, for such an intelligent girl, the work she did was often faulty, Emmie had said. And yet, she'd been quite technically minded. She had mended Emmie's bicycle just a year ago, you wouldn't have thought cars could be so different. Her niece had asked one of the other girls about Lena, and had been hushed quickly. It wasn’t safe to talk about people who disappeared, or you might turn around and find yourself being fetched in the middle of the night, while the street lay in darkness, and everyone listened, and stayed hidden.

Marie-Louise shuddered reflexively. If only Johannes had managed to get the girls sent abroad, to their beloved School. But it had been too late, and now she lived in constant fear that one of them might do or say something wrong. They acted just like everyone else, but there was a difference about the way they thought, an attitude which kept them strangely aloof and untouched by all Hitler’s grand words. And Johannes was no better. She knew he helped anyone who asked him for aid. Anyone, no matter what from what kind of background they came. She wouldn’t want him to change, but that was dangerous, too.

He had been buying her jewellery for her birthdays and for Christmas for the last few years. Expensive jewellery. She had never worn it. She did not approve of superfluous adornments. But of course it had not been bought to be worn. It was a way of acquiring a currency which could neither betray your nationality nor lose its value. She just hoped they would never need to use it.

Shaking herself out of her gloomy frame of mind, she went into the kitchen, and began to prepare Abendessen.



“Tante, I’m home.” Emmie came wearily through the door, shutting it behind her. “Is Joanna back yet?”

Her aunt looked out of the kitchen door and smiled at her.

“No, not yet, Liebes, but I’m sure she won’t be long. The shop shuts at five, after all.”

“In that case I shall go and wash and change into something which is not covered in oil so that I look like a respectable human being for supper!”, Emmie told her aunt, and went into the bedroom which she shared with Joanna.

She washed quickly, and, taking care not to let her working clothes touch any of the carpets or the bedspread, put on a skirt and a blouse ready for the evening meal which they always took together.

As she picked up her hairbrush, and brushed out the long, white-blond hair which was the envy of so many of her colleagues, her eyes fell upon a photograph of Karl which was on her bureau. It had been taken four years ago, she remembered, he had been just eighteen, and had been so proud that he had passed all the requirements to learn to become a pilot. He had been so excited, and had already seen himself flying the civilian planes of wealthy men, and seeing the world. He had not known that only a few months later, when the instructors saw his talent, he would be drafted into the Luftwaffe, for by then, the Anschluss had come, and Hitler had could decree what must happen. She knew he was a good pilot, and she knew how much he had hated obeying his orders, knowing that every bomb he dropped might kill many people who despised Hitler as much as he did.

One day, when he was still in special training, he had come to visit them, distraught, underweight, and so far from the jolly brother she could remember from better years that she had been shocked – and had realised that he needed help. It was only then that she had known she could trust him with their secret, and that he had not been taken in by the Nazi promises. She and Joanna had taken him on a picnic out of town; they had sat in the middle of a field, where nobody could overhear them, and they had told him all about the Peace League. It had been what he had needed to hear, something that took him out of his problems, and gave him fresh ideas to think about. He had questioned them about the School in which he had before shown little interest, and had left heartened, knowing he was part of a movement of peace, although he must bring war wherever his plane took him.

The next time he had come, he had told them a secret in his turn, about how he had become involved with another peace movement and had helped two men to escape from Germany. He refused to mention their names, but did tell them that they too had been connected to the School.

That had been a year later, and when he was granted leave in early 1940, she and Joanna had given him a message for the School, and he had promise to drop it over Britain if he had the chance. That was the last time they’d seen him, and then, in October, the Red Cross had told them that he had been shot down and injured, and that he was now a Prisoner of War. Naturally she was terribly worried about him, but she was glad that he need fly no more. It had begun to destroy him. He had not written anything of the kind, of course, that would have been far too dangerous, but the tone of his letters had changed, and she had known he could not last in this system for much longer.

If only they could join him in England. They might be allowed to see him sometimes, even if he was in prison. Emmie gazed a little longer at the photograph, imagining his face, with the eyes which were as dark as hers and Joanna’s, his jolly smile and the air of utter self-confidence, of which this war had robbed him so cruelly. Then she re-braided her hair, shut away her unachievable wishes, checked her appearance in the mirror, and went to help her aunt.



“Emmie, Tante Marie-Louise, I’m back!” The door was shut noisily as Joanna came into the flat.

“Where is everyone?” she asked. “Doesn’t anyone want to know what happened at the shop today?”

“So, what happened at the shop today?” said Emmie, smiling at her younger sister as she came out of the dining room.

Looking at Joanna was like looking into a mirror which made her two years younger. Everyone had always exclaimed over their similarity, and their looks in general, as the combination of white-blond hair and dark eyes and lashes was so unusual. What a shame their eyes hadn’t been blue, Emmie thought, slightly sarcastically, they could have been on posters throughout the Reich. The prototype Aryans that Hitler and his companions were always holding up to everyone as an example. As if anyone could help their genetics! The authorities had got Darwin all wrong anyway; Miss Wilson would have come down on them like a ton of bricks if they had misinterpreted him in such a way!

“Nothing, of course,” answered Joanna, smiling back.

It was a game they often played. It had started when they had both had to leave the Nazi school which they had begun to attend as soon as they reached Eisenheim to go and work. Apparently it was wasteful to be educated above the age of fourteen if you could be put to work so much more profitably for the Reich. Both girls hated their work. After quite strenuous full-time education, they were bored with the mindless repetitiveness of their jobs, and the meagre pay they received was hardly any incentive to enjoy work more.

Emmie laughed. “What, you mean for once you didn’t have someone complaining that this that or the other wasn’t available?”

Her sister groaned. “Don’t remind me! Frau Lauterbach was in again today, and you know what a chatterbox she is, I thought she’d never leave! And she insisted on telling Katja and me all about Gudrun’s mistake of letting the saucepan boil dry so that it had hole. If she wasn’t forever asking the poor girl to do five things at once, but would just let her finish one task properly, I dare say she wouldn’t be half as scatter-brained or half as clumsy!”

The sisters shared their amusement over the rather large lady whose house was such a mess, and who hardly did any work, saying it tired her too much.

“Not surprising with that bulk, she reminds me of the “Frau Berlin” in the story which the prefects told us once when we were Juniors. I don’t know how she manages to stay that size what with rationing on and all.” Joanna remarked, sending her sister into gales of laughter.

 

#2:  Author: dackel, Location: Wolfenbuettel, Germany/Cambridge, England PostPosted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 4:29 pm

2. Consequences
Suddenly, there was the sound of a key in the lock, and they turned to the door, knowing that it must be their uncle. Dr.Grundtbaum entered quietly, closed the door, took off his coat and hat, hung them on the coat-stand, and then finally turned to his nieces.

Emmie took one look at his face and rushed to his side, leading him into the living room and sitting him down in an armchair.

“Onkel, whatever has happened?” she cried.

Joanna stood at her side, hovering indecisively, unsure whether to fetch their aunt. But she had heard the door go, and had heard Emmie’s question, and, fearing the worst, she hastened into the lounge.

“Johannes, what has happened?” she echoed Emmie, for she could see by her husband’s face that something had occurred. Why, he had aged ten years since she had seen him that morning.

The doctor buried his head in his hands and then looked up at the three women around him. His anguish was portrayed on his face, as the guilt within him sawed at his heart. What had he been thinking of! He had three women to look after, two of them girls not yet out of their teens! But what else could he have done…

“Right, now I’ve had sit down”, he said as cheerfully as he could, getting up out of the chair as if the weight of the world was pushing down on his shoulders. “Why don’t we all go into the kitchen and see what Marie-Louise has made for Abendessen?”

Seeing the disbelief on their faces, he held a finger to his lips, and was rewarded by looks of shocked comprehension.

Emmie’s lips narrowed with worry as she followed her aunt and uncle into the kitchen. This looked serious. There could only be one reason to be this quiet. The Gestapo, seven letters to strike terror in the bravest hearts. They knew everything, because everything was reported to them. Whatever would they do if they had something against her uncle? Surely they wouldn't just come and...fetch the whole family, as they had done with the Neumann's.

She glanced at her sister. If anything happened to Joanna, she did not know what she would do. There and then she made the vow to keep her safe, no matter the cost.

The vegetable stew which Marie-Louise had made for supper was simmering gently on the range. Johannes Grundtbaum took a quick look around, and suggested a cup of tea, in a voice slightly louder than the one he usually used, unless his patients happened to be the aged, infirm, and sometimes, deaf, as was more and more often the case since the war had come upon Germany once again.

Trembling, his wife filled the kettle at the tap, and set it on the stove. Johannes watched it carefully, waiting for it the hiss to begin which signalled that it was close to the boil. The two girls, clutching each other's hands, which had become cold at the implication of the grave danger which they faced, hovered behind their uncle, their faces drawn with fear.

The kettle remained uncooperative, sizzling in a most unconvincing way before finally giving way to the full voiced hiss which would effectively mask any further sound.

Relaxing slightly, the girls' uncle sat down at the kitchen table, and motioned for the others to be seated. Dreading what they might hear, they complied. Johannes did not mince his words.

"We have to leave.” he stated baldly. "Tonight."

As the women stared at him, appalled and uncomprehending, he explained. "I bumped into Hans-Peter Schmidt today, one of the town council. He warned me. Somebody has betrayed me."

His wife rested her elbows on the table, and let her face sink into her hands. A strong woman, she appeared to crumple before his dreadful news. Then, sitting up straight again, she nodded briskly.

"Well", she said, "at least we are prepared. We knew this might happen."

She stood up, briefly resting her hand on her husband's shoulder, but told the others to remain seated.

"You explain to the girls. They'll want to know why we have to leave. I'll go and fetch the box."

With this cryptic remark, she left the room, and could be heard rummaging in the pantry.

The girls' eyes snapped back to their uncle's face, as he quietly started to tell them why they would, yet again, be taken from their familiar surroundings to an unknown future.



"You remember the Neumanns, don't you?” he asked.

The two girls nodded mutely, and Emmie's eyes flashed with sudden comprehension. "Yes, Onkel. They were...taken away...some months ago. Lena...” here her voice broke, as she considered again the probable fate of her friend, the only real friend one she had had since they had left the School.

Johannes patted her gently on the shoulder before continuing his story. "The morning after they were fetched, their neighbour, Frau Schulze, came to the surgery. She brought the baby with her."

Emmie stared at him. "Frau Neumann's youngest? Anna?"

"Yes", her uncle agreed, "that's right. Frau Neumann had hidden her very carefully, Frau Schulze wouldn't say where - good woman that she is, she didn't want me to know too much. She heard the baby crying early the next morning, and managed to get into the flat before the Gestapo came back to conduct a thorough search. She found the baby and brought it to me. She couldn't keep it, everybody knows her husband died five years ago, so it would have been obvious who the little girl was. And she didn't dare be thought a sympathiser; she took enough of a risk as it was."

"As you did", Joanna answered shrewdly. "I seem to remember you going to town that afternoon. Was that to take the baby away?"

"That's right. I couldn't give it to any of the women here; it would have been dangerous for them and for the poor little mite." He looked at the girls seriously: "The terrible thing is, you see, Maedchen, that Frau Neumann must have known what was going to happen. She had enough foresight to hide the baby and all of the baby's things, so she must have known."

Tears began to fall silently down Joanna's face as she considered the poor mother's plight. "So she had to abandon her baby to save it?" she asked.

Her uncle nodded wearily. "I took the poor child to the orphan's home in town the next day. Said I'd found it in front of my door, and didn't know who she was. Told them that all there was with her was a printed name tag which said "Johanna". At least that contains her real name, and it's common enough. As I'm a doctor, nobody questioned it. It happens so often now, when mothers no longer have enough money to feed their children. And the doctor or the minister is the only one they trust to find a new home for them. The orphanage people told me that she would be well looked after and that they already had a family in mind for her - apparently the lady they were thinking of had had a miscarriage, and couldn't have any more children, but was desperate for a girl after having two boys. She will love the little girl like her own. Anna is lucky, you know, that they have found a new home for her so quickly. She's only four months old; she won't remember her first family at all."

The old man sighed. "Maybe that's all to the best, then she won't face the heartbreak of the truth later on. They won't be able to trace her, you know."

He paused again, and then carried on, his voice sounding tight and constrained. "But I do feel as if I've stolen something from her - her identity. She won't ever really know who she is; it could affect her so badly if she ever finds out that she is adopted."

Emmie placed her hand over her uncle's. "Surely that is better than taking her life?” she questioned. "And you would have, if you hadn't concealed who she was."

Johannes Grundtbaum looked at her, slightly surprised at the wisdom of her words, and then nodded slowly. He stared down at the table-top with its pristine, though much darned, white cloth.

"That's not the end of the story, though, meine Maedchen. Another neighbour must have seen Frau Schulze go into the flat, and then, of course, the Gestapo came back and found those baby things, although according to the family there was no baby. Frau Schulze moved elsewhere without giving a new address about a month back, so she cannot have felt safe here anymore. Somebody must have made the connection to me. I don't know how. Herr Schmidt, the one who warned me, lives near to the street where the Neumanns used to live, and he is on the town council, so he must have found out something. I'm only speculating, but he could have heard a rumour that somebody has reported me, or is going to, and thought to warn me. He took a great risk; for all that he joined the Nazis for his own advancement."

Johannes took one of each girls' hands into his own.

"You must understand that when we leave, we must also leave behind any traces which might tell people who we were. And while we are still here you must not show any difference in manner. If anybody comes to the door tonight, tell them they cannot come in, as your aunt has all the carpets up in preparation for beating them out tomorrow. Do not talk loudly; I fear that no one can be trusted. When we have left, the story will be that we have been bombed out, and are trying to get to family further south. That is so common that we shouldn't be questioned. It also explains the fact that we lack papers, though we might have to come up with something else."

He leaned back and sighed. "I'm more sorry than I can say to have to put you through this, but I know you understand that I could not have done anything else and still lived with myself!”

 

#3:  Author: dackel, Location: Wolfenbuettel, Germany/Cambridge, England PostPosted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 4:30 pm

3. Preparations in fear and trembling
Marie-Louise bustled back into the room, bearing a large wooden box. The word 'Mehl ' was printed on the side in large letters. It was very dusty.

She smiled bravely at her husband. "You've told them the whole story then?"

He nodded, and reached behind him to turn the kettle off.

"We might as well have supper before we do anything else.” she said, and began to serve the stew, simply putting the box down on the sideboard, and ignoring it. She placed the plates, brimming with hot stew before the girls and her husband, before serving herself.

"Eat", she encouraged them, "who knows when or were we will be having out next meal."

Although none of them felt truly hungry, they saw the sense behind her statement, and began to eat; their eyes fixed firmly on the table-cloth, their hearts clinging tightly to the delicate veil of normality spread over their precarious situation.


None of them took long over that meal, the last they were to eat together in the four walls of the flat. It was hard to believe in the all too real danger which faced them, for the flat felt like the safe place home should always be. As soon as the meal was finished, illusions of safety were briskly swept away as Marie-Louise took charge.

"Johannes, get our clothes ready, and whatever papers we need to take. Girls, come with me", she said, leading the way to their bedroom. "Get out your warmest clothes, and anything that you want to take that is flat enough to conceal underneath them. We cannot risk being seen carrying lots of bags, it would be too obvious. Emmie, when you have got your clothes out, come to me with them."

With that, she bustled out, leaving the girls to stare bleakly around the room, mourning over yet another lost home, and the possessions which had survived that first heart-breaking move though they would now have to be left behind.



"Well," Emmie stated, "we should start."

She went to the wardrobe they shared, and took out thick stockings, her warmest dress, a cardigan, and her winter coat. On second thoughts, she also removed a skirt and blouse. She showed Joanna what she had chosen.

"You had better take the same sort of selection - we might be cold, and this gives us a change if the top layer gets a bit 'raggedy'", she stated, with a small attempt at levity.

Joanna cast a look around the room. "What else can we take?” she asked her sister helplessly.

Emmie reached for the photo of Karl, and removed it from its frame. "We can't leave this." Carefully, she slipped it into the large pocket of her skirt, and opening a drawer in her bureau, took out a small photo-album. Removing all the photos, she wrapped them in a sheet of paper torn from the book, and added those to the pocket.

Joanna picked up a doll, an elderly toy which had suffered much at both their hands. Her blond hair had long escaped its plaits, and her clothes were faded.

"We can't even take her!” the girl said, sadly. "Nothing to remind us of Mutter and Vater, only the photos." With a visible effort, biting her lips until they were blood-red, she regained control, and laid the doll back on her bed, smoothing her clothes flat, and caressing the ruffled hair.

Emmie swallowed hard at the gesture, trying to keep down the sobs that were rising in her throat, and, catching her bundle of clothes up in her arms, fled to her aunt's room, leaving her sister to the difficult choice of what to take, and what to leave behind forever.



Entering the room, Emmie stared about her in surprise, for whatever she had expected to find her aunt doing, it was not unpicking the hems of most of the clothes she had obviously laid out for herself to wear. Her aunt glanced up from her work as she sat in the chair next to the large wooden bed with its white plumeaux which made the centre-piece of the room.

"Bring your clothes over here, Liebes, and let me see what you have chosen. Ah yes," as she saw the selection which Emmie had made, "that is a good choice. Warm, and you will be able to change. Come and sit on the bed, then you can begin to unpick the hems on your coat, and on your skirt and dress."

Emmie still looked confused. "But, Tante", she asked hesitantly, "why?"

Without answering her question, her aunt pointed towards the large wooden box, which she had carried in from the kitchen. "Look inside the box, and get out both the linen bags which are in there, please."

As Emmie obeyed, Marie-Louise continued with her work, unpicking a last few stitches, and then got up to join Emmie, who was kneeling by the box, staring in disbelief at the contents which she saw therein. Inside the box was a collection of hair-dye, make-up, waving tongs, a glass jar which, on closer inspection, contained what looked suspiciously like her uncle's hair-clippings, and the two linen bags which her aunt had mentioned.

All together, Emmie reflected, coming closer to the truth than she guessed, it looked like the contents of the make-up box in School's acting cupboard. She could not imagine why her aunt owned these things, or where she had bought them, for make-up was scare these days; and Marie-Louise frowned heavily on make-up of any kind, even pronouncing verbally on the evils of face-powder, and muttering under her breath when she saw any of the more wealthy women in town wearing a little lip-stick.



However, before she could comment on the box, or her aunt could kneel down beside her, both stiffened, as the unmistakable sound of many pairs of booted feet mounting the stairs rang out.

Joanna rushed into the room, her arms full of clothes, her eyes wide with fear. "Who...?” she started to say, even as her sister leapt to her feet and gripped her arms in a tight grip. "Hush!” she commanded in tones that would have done Matey proud. The younger girl became silent, and all three women stood as if frozen, listening to the footsteps rising ever closer up the stair-case.

Onkel Johannes came into the room, face pale, and stood, one hand clutching the door-handle, fingers white with strain, as the foot-steps came up the stairs, onto the landing, went over the landing, seemed to pause, for one, infinitesimal, yet everlasting moment...and went up the next flight of stairs.

A collective sigh of relief went up, and all sent up a silent prayer of thanks-giving.

Joanna looked at her sister, and started her question again: "Who was that?" Her voice still shook with fear and relief.

Emmie began to laugh weakly. "The Homan boys coming home from work; it must have been."

Her uncle nodded, as he sat down on the bed. "Yes, you must be right, it sounded like there were a lot more of them than just the five there are. Load of young elephants, they sounded like a company of soldiers! Their parents have been lucky that the eldest two haven't been called up yet. Not that they'd probably mind - the 'patriotic' fools! You'd think they'd be more grateful to have so many healthy boys - and two sets of twins, at that - that they wouldn't want to send them out to be killed!"

His wife let him rant on for a few minutes, knowing full well that this reaction came from the stress and fear of those few seconds when all might have been over. But they couldn't leave yet, not in broad day-light, not without anyone noticing and questioning, no matter that she, for one, wanted to walk out and never look back, and also wanted to crawl into bed and huddle under her blanket, sure that everything would be fine...and wake up the next morning to find that everything had only been a dream.

However, she brought her thoughts back to reality again; they only wasted time, 'what ifs' never did anyone any good. "If pots and pans were coins of gold, then tinkers would be rich", her mother had always said. Well, that was true enough, Marie-Louise reflected, and took charge once more.

"Emmie, sit down and start unpicking the hems of your clothes, Joanna, you help her. Here, Johannes", and she bent down and took the glass jar out of the box, which was still standing there, forgotten amongst the fear of being 'fetched for questioning', and never returning. "See if you look as different with a beard as I think you will. Use the glue in the kitchen; it should stay on for about a week if you're careful."

As their aunt bent down, and took both linen bags from the box, Joanna and Emmie sat down on the floor, and began to unpick their hems, still unsure why they were doing it, but so relieved after the shock they had received that they asked no further questions. Marie-Louise opened both small sacks, and emptied them, their contents sliding out onto the bed in a glittering, jangling stream to form two separate piles.

Emmie and Joanna stared in amazement, then suddenly Emmie understood. "Mother's jewellery!” she exclaimed. "So that's what we will be sewing into our hems!"

Her aunt smiled. "That's right, Liebes, then, if we need money, we can use this. The other pile is my jewellery, some from my mother, though we did not manage to keep much of that. Most of it is what your uncle gave to me for my birthdays and for Christmas, every year since Hitler took the power. Jewellery will never betray you; it never loses its value, unlike money. And we can use it in any country. Everyone understands the language of gold."

Her hands stirred the pile of golden necklaces, bracelets, broaches, rings, and ear-rings. There was a slight expression of distaste on her friendly face. "It would be vulgar to wear most of these items, let alone all of them together, as some Neureiche did after the last war, when they came to money. I suppose their jewels did them more good than money in the bank, though. I remember taking a wheelbarrow full of money to the bakers to buy bread. Bad times, meine Maedchen, hard times indeed."

She sighed. "Better than now, though."

She stood looking at the jewellery for a moment, and then, taking up two necklaces, began to sew them carefully into the hem of her skirt. Emmie and Joanna bent over their work, and silence reigned over the flat.

Once they had started, their work did not take long. About an hour after they had begun, Emmie placed the last item on the pile with a sigh. How she hated hemming. It did not matter what. And hemming these clothes had been particularly horrible. Knowing that they would have flee when they were finished made her want to scream with impatience - or make the task last all night. Several times, they had all started, and then stiffened with fear at noises outside which just that morning would have seemed ordinary, not worth any notice. The slamming of a car door, footsteps upstairs, people talking in the street...

Emmie had vivid memories of hemming sheets at the School, in punishment for several of her naughty pranks. Knitting was all right, and embroidery could be fun, if you were allowed to design the motifs yourself, but hemming! Any other kind of sewing was preferable, she decided. Even mending.

And still would have given anything to find herself in Matron's room, with pile of sheets as high as the ceiling waiting to be hemmed.

 

#4:  Author: dackel, Location: Wolfenbuettel, Germany/Cambridge, England PostPosted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 4:30 pm

4. Masquerade
"Well, Maedchen, that much, at least, is done.” Marie-Louise stated with relief, and got up from her chair. Stooping down to the box once more, she took out two bottles of some dark liquid, and a smaller dark brown bottle. "Come with me.", she commanded, leading the way to the bathroom. She knocked on the door. "Johannes, have you finished in there?” she asked, a trifle impatiently.

The door opened, and the two girls barely suppressed shrieks of shock when a complete stranger looked out.

Their aunt smiled. "I knew you would look different with a beard! Not even our neighbours would recognise you like that."

Johannes returned her smile a little wryly. "Well, that was the purpose of this masquerade, Liebes, after all. No one is supposed to be able to recognise me."

The girls still stared. He sounded like their uncle, but the beard changed his appearance completely, masking his rather sharp chin, and giving his face new contours. No, they decided, if they had seen him on the street, they should not have known him.

Their aunt took charge once more. "I'll do the girls' hair, if you go and pack us something to eat. Pack it flat, mind, you know we can't be seen with packages, it would look too suspicious."

Taking up one of the bottles, and depositing the others on the little shelf under the bathroom mirror, she shook it smartly, and, motioning Emmie over to the bath, told her to unbraid her hair. As soon as she had done so, Marie-Louise told her to bend over the bath, and began to brush the dye into her glorious blond hair.

"You can't flee like you are." she stated. "Your colouring is far too unusual. People would remember you. You're lucky you've got such dark eyes; the hair won't be at all special anymore. Emmie, carry on on your own, and then wash out the bath so that isn't any colour left. Johanna, come here, I will start off your hair, as well." After a small pause in which the girls' hair became darker and darker, she straightened. "Call me when you are ready. Check each other's hair and carry on until you cannot see any blond. With any luck nobody will able to see that it has been dyed at all. When you're ready, call me." With that, she left them.

Joanna sighed. "Mother loved our hair so much." she stated in slightly muffled tones.

Through a curtain of now unfamiliarly dark hair, Emmie managed to look at her. "Never mind, Joanna. I'm sure the colour will come out when we wash it - or when we get wet." Suddenly she had to giggle as the image came to mind of herself and her sister, standing in the rain with dark colour pouring over their faces.

Joanna giggled, too, sharing the image. "I've always wondered what we might look like with dark hair. Who knows, maybe we will like it so much we will want to keep the colour!"

Emmie snorted in a most undignified way. "Oh yes, I can just see us explaining that to Matron when we get back to the School. "Excuse me, Matron, but we prefer our hair to be dark." There wouldn't be anything left of us by the time she had finished telling us exactly what she thought!"

Suddenly, Joanna was serious once more. "Is that where we're going, then - the School?"

Emmie sounded surprised. "But of course we're going to England, Karl is there. And once we are there, surely they will let us go to school." Joanna was silent. "Joanna?"

"What if they haven't re-opened the School?", the other girl asked, almost inaudibly.

Emmie swallowed hard. She had not considered this. What if Madame had not begun again? After all, she was married now, with children to worry about, she might not want the concern of a school on top of her other worries. And, she realised, her aunt and uncle had not told them where they were going. What if it wasn't England at all? All her dreams turned to ashes, as she realised that they had been just that - dreams. Still...

"Of course they will have re-opened!” she stated with all the surety she summon. "I cannot imagine all the teachers abandoning the School, and just giving up. Not after that talk of Madame's about being brave and fighting, and everything. No, they will definitely have re-opened the School, and we will get to England to join it, and to find Karl." She pushed the niggling doubts to the back of her mind. She was the elder sister after all; she must look after Joanna, and keep her spirits up and her hope alive. For both of them.

"Right then,", she said, standing upright, and pushing her hair back over the towel her aunt had laid over her shoulders, "let me have a look at you."

She stared at her sister, and swallowed.

Joanna returned the look anxiously. "Well?” she said.

Emmie continued to stare at her. "You look...like Mutter." she burst out. "Her hair was darker than Vater’s and you look so much like her!"

Joanna turned to the mirror, and examined her new self intently. "I don't think I will want to keep my hair this shade." she stated slowly. "It is uncanny. I don't think I like it." She paused, reaching out to the mirror, and then turning away abruptly. "At least we won't have a mirror with which to frighten ourselves silly while we are fleeing!"

Emmie laughed a little nervously. "We'll have each other." she said. "We won't need a mirror!"

Marie-Louise re-entered the room. And stopped as if she had run into a brick wall. She gasped. "You look so much like your mother! I didn't expect that!" She shook her head, unwilling to think about the quite frightening likeness which both girls suddenly displayed. "Your uncle has arranged to the food which we will be taking with us, so now I need to see about dying his hair and his new beard. Go to your room, and put this on your hands, lower arms, faces, and do not forget your necks." She held out the small bottle which had sat on the bathroom shelf, waiting. "It will make your skin darker. Nothing about you may resemble who you were before. I would disguise you as boys, if I could, but you're too old for that. Nobody would believe it. Go on, hurry." Turning, she called to their uncle, and sent the girls off to complete their transformation.

Emmie led the way into their room. "Shall I put this stuff on you first?" she asked. "Then you can help me put it on myself.” Joanna nodded, and, upending the bottle onto a handkerchief, Emmie began.

Just as she had finished Joanna's face and neck, there were suddenly foot-steps the landing, though none of them had noticed any noise on the stairs, and somebody knocked on the door. The girls started and stared at each other in terror. If somebody found them now, there would be no disguising that they had wanted to flee. Their uncle's, and thus the entire family's guilt in the eyes of the regime would be certain, with no chance for a reprieve, or an appeal.

The sisters heard their aunt going to the door, and, both acting on instinct, and a desperate need to know what would happen, dashed to the door of their room, and gazed out of the small crack left between the door and the wall. From there they could see the front door. Their aunt was just opening it.

The first thing they noticed were the boots. Long, black, shiny boots, reaching almost up to the man's knees. In the dark hallway, they could barely make out his shape, but then they both gasped in silent terror as he stepped forward, frowning.

On his spotless uniform was the insignia of the Gestapo.

Emmie's hands tightened on her sister's shoulders until her knuckles were white, but in her fear the younger girl did not notice the pain, although the next day she would find that where her sister's hands had gripped her, there were now deep bruises which outlined each of Emmie's gripping fingers.

Meanwhile, out in the hall, Marie-Louise faced the greatest challenge of her life. After a small moment of absolute mindless panic, in which she wanted to bang the door shut in the man's face, she had to pull herself together, give the hated greeting, and ask the man, quite quietly, and calmly, as if she had nothing to fear or to hide, what he wanted.

Inwardly, her heart quaked and sweat started to bead in the small of her back. If only Johannes had been able to answer the door. But she was the only one who looked normal, now. They had planned it so, as her preparations would not last long, but now she bitterly regretted it. "Good Lord, stand by my side in this the hour of our need." she prayed silently, knowing that if the man was here to arrest them, God would not produce a miracle to save them. Why should he, when so many who were better people than they had not been saved? All she could do was clutch the door-handle for strength, and from somewhere dredge up the power to smile.

The Gestapo officer frowned. This was not what he had expected. "Is this not the flat of the Bosses?", he asked in tones which made plain that he not used to being thwarted, nor expected to be this time.

Marie-Louise kept her smile rigidly stuck to her mouth, as her legs trembled beneath her. Could it be...? Could he possible have...? "No," she said, her tones even, and her voice polite. "They live in the apartment below this one. You have come up one flight of steps too far."

The officer looked annoyed. "I can never remember which floor she lives on." he muttered, for all the world as if Marie-Louise had purposely moved the people for whom he was looking into the flat below. "Why couldn't my sister live in a proper house, like all the rest of the family?" And then, without a further word, or any thanks, he turned on his exquisitely shod heel, and marched off down the stairs.

Marie-Louise stood for a moment as if turned to stone, not caring about his rudeness, not caring about anything except that she could see his back moving away from her, and that nothing compelled her to follow him. Then, slowly and quietly, she closed the door, turned around, took one step, and stumbled, supporting herself with one hand against the wall until Johannes rushed out of the kitchen to place his arm around her and lead to the sitting room, where he helped her to a chair. She bent over, resting her elbows on her knees, and her head in her hands, panting as if she had run a mile.

The girls tumbled out of their room to join the two old people, rushing to embrace their aunt, and assuring her how brave she had been, and how he had noticed nothing at all. Marie-Louise revived under their hugs, and managed a weary smile. “If have to do that again, I think it will kill me.” she said. "I thought that was it..." She pressed her lips firmly together to avoid bursting into sobs she knew would do no good, and tried to bottle up the excess emotion to deal with later. Gripping the arms of the chair firmly, she got up. "There is still much to be done." she said, with a look at Johannes, whose hair was still mottled, though his beard was now black.

She sent him back into the bathroom, and then went into her room, shutting the door behind her. Emmie and Joanna looked at each other and, without a word, returned to their room, and continued applying the face dye to all visible patches of skin as evenly as possible.

Meanwhile, Marie-Louise was standing in front of her mirror, brushing out her long greying blond hair, which she had released from the traditional plaits which she wore wound around her head.

She sighed as she brushed the wavy, silky mass of hair. Her only beauty, she had always thought, though Johannes had tried to tell her differently. Old flatterer! Smiling suddenly, she remembered the day of their engagement, when he had begged her to take her hair down, so that he might touch it. Her mother had been shocked when she returned with it undone until she had heard the news. Such rejoicing that she should be marrying a doctor with so much in his favour!

Slowly, her smile faded. After one last sweeping stroke of the brush, she resolutely grasped the scissors, and, mouth pressed into a firm line, began to snip away. Soon shining tresses of hair covered the floor about her. She cut the last strand, and turned away from the mirror, aware that tears were coursing down her cheeks. Ridiculous, she told herself. So much suffering all around you, and you cry for your hair! She turned back, and bravely surveyed her picture.

Marie-Louise grimaced with distaste, and reached for the make-up bag to eradicate what were to her the last traces of her very respectability.

 

#5:  Author: dackel, Location: Wolfenbuettel, Germany/Cambridge, England PostPosted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 4:31 pm

5. Plans
Emmie and Joanna sat on their beds in their room, waiting for their next instructions. They had finished applying the face dye, and changed into their first layer of clothes, but had decided to wait to put on any more until they were about to leave. The two sisters sat silently, contemplating all they would leave behind, and what their future might bring. If they had one.

A knock sounded on the door, and their uncle came in, carrying two warm woollen blankets. “When we’re ready to go, wrap these around you underneath your coats.” he said. “You’ll be glad of them as the nights are cold, and we do not know where we will be sleeping the next few weeks.” Or even months, he thought privately, eaten up with guilt at having dragged the two innocent girls into his predicament with him. The fact that they understood and condoned his actions somehow made it even harder to bear.

Emmie leant forward eagerly. “Onkel,” she asked, “where are we going? I know we have to leave the country, but were can we go?”

Johannes frowned at her intent look, wondering what the girl was thinking. However, it could do no harm to tell her, they would have to know sooner or later. And if they were caught, it would hardly matter how much they knew, it was unlikely they would questioned, their guilt would simply be assumed. Sternly, he ordered himself to shake off his gloomy thoughts, and tell them the truth.

“We are going to France first. Even the occupied zone will be better than here. And if we can get into Free France, then we are going to try to get to Portugal."

He held his hand up for silence as Emmie opened her lips on what from the look on her face were clearly going to be protests. She subsided, and waited for him to finish, her mind working furiously.

"It is a neutral country, and I have friends there who would help me. I was there as a young doctor once, and some still remember me. They will help us start again, and if we can, we might even go to South America. We would be safer there, for who knows how much more of Europe Hitler will conquer before he finishes? I have no wish to be caught in Europe unable to escape at all.”

By this time Emmie was almost trembling with impatience, trying not to interrupt her uncle even as he spoke. As soon as he stopped, she burst out: “But Onkel, we must go to England and find Karl. We know he is there, and there are many people who would speak for us. Herr Doktor Russell would, and also Madame. They are highly respected people, and I am sure we would be allowed to go back to the School…” Her voice died as she saw pity in her uncle’s face.

“Liebes Kind, we could not get there.” he said. “I am sure it is impossible, now. Too many people have fled that way. And I cannot think that they will admit more refugees. They must have thousands already. They will be worried about spies. Those who escape interrogation here are sure to be questioned there, also. Anyway, the Channel is too well patrolled. We hear almost every day of some ship going down. No, no, Portugal is much better. No,” as she opened her mouth to disagree, “let me have no arguments, we will need to work together to get away undetected. Make no mistake about how hard this will be for us all."

He paused for a moment, and then went on, his voice heavy and his back bowed down with responsibility. "Meine armen Maedchen, promise me one thing, that if we get separated, or if your aunt and I get caught, you will run, you will go on, and if necessary pretend you have never seen us before and do not know us. Your French is good enough that to Germans you could probably pass as natives. If we get into trouble, you must promise to run, and not to stop until you are in safety. I could never forgive myself - I cannot forgive myself for the trouble I have brought upon you - if I knew that you were going to die through my fault, I could not bear it. Promise me that you will go on until you are in safety. If I can rest easy on this count at least, it will be a comfort. Your aunt and I, we are old, but you are young and should live many years, not end in one of those atrocious...places.”

He almost spat the last word, as much anger as the girls had ever seen in him suddenly radiating off him in waves, as he thought of the rumours. Thought of the depths to which some of his countrymen, and even women, had sunk.

With heavy hearts, the girls gave their promise, knowing it would bring their uncle some relief from his guilt, though neither intended to deny their aunt and uncle, even if they endangered themselves by not doing so. However, Emmie was beginning to realise that if she could keep Joanna safe from harm, she would do anything, anything to save her, and could appreciate her uncle’s attempt to bind them to a strong promise designed to preserve their freedom, and if it came to the last, their lives.

 

#6:  Author: dackel, Location: Wolfenbuettel, Germany/Cambridge, England PostPosted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 4:33 pm

6. Appearances
Johannes left the girls’ bedroom, and crossed the hall to knock on the door of the bedroom he shared with his wife. There was a small pause, and then: “Come in.” He opened the door and entered. And gazed at the strange woman sitting on the stool before the dressing mirror on the bureau.

She had wildly wavy hair, cut to just under her chin. Her cheeks were red, as were her lips, and when she turned to look at him, he saw that her eyes were boldly made up; kohl making them seem larger than usual, and the blue eye-shadow making her look – disreputable was the first word that came to mind, a concept he had never before connected with his wife.

Marie-Louise folded her lips into a tight, straight line as she saw Johannes staring at her. She had hardly expected him to like it, but…if only he would say something. After all, if she could put up with his ridiculous beard, and hair that made him look at least ten younger, surely he could tolerate some make-up.

It wasn’t even as if she wanted to wear it…the silence chewed her nerves to ribbons.

Suddenly he stirred, walked over to her, and, laying his cheek gently against her hair, smiled at her in the mirror. “To me, you will always be beautiful.” he said, and took out his mercifully clean handkerchief to wipe away tenderly the tears which pooled out of her eyes. Marie-Louise let him be for a minute, and then swatted his hand away.

“Now I’ll have to do it all again!” she scolded, shooing him back out of the room. “Go and make yourself useful instead of paying me sentimental compliments.”

Johannes left the room quickly, outwardly looking abashed, inwardly grinning. That was his wife. Sharp words sometimes, but a heart of gold. She had never one to think herself more than averagely pretty, when he’d hardly been able to take his eyes off her at their first meeting. He allowed himself a small sigh for the lost beauty of her hair, and then reminded himself that it would grow again, and that it would surely be a lot less trouble for her, short. At least he had been able to cheer her up enough for her to snap at him, as she always did when he complimented her on her appearance. But he knew she was pleased really. And what he had said had been nothing less than the truth. Under that awful make-up she was still the same woman he had married all those years ago. If he could love her with lines in her face, and a stouter figure than she used to have, make-up was not going to make any difference. How strange that she should have thought it would.

But then, women had strange ideas sometimes.

 

#7:  Author: dackel, Location: Wolfenbuettel, Germany/Cambridge, England PostPosted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 4:34 pm

7. Avenging Angels
Even as Johannes crossed back over the hall to the girls’ room, he heard the air-raid sirens starting to howl. Suppressing the natural reaction of fear, he made himself listen properly, and realised that the sirens were still a little way off. Kaltental, he thought, the next town on, not us this time. Still it might be a good idea to go the shelter…suddenly he realised that they couldn’t, not looking like they did now.

Emmie and Joanna burst out of their room as their aunt came into the hall, the short delay in both cases caused by their need to fling on all their extra clothes. Being at boarding school and camping with the guides had made both girls rapid dressers, and their aunt was used to getting up quickly in the night from her duties as a nurse, so none of them had wasted time. And they, unlike other people, did not dress in their best clothes to go to the shelters. Some did, thinking that they would save their best clothes if their house was bombed, or, if they did die, they might as well be buried in them. So women appeared in fancy dresses and fur-coats – it was surprising how many of them had suddenly turned up, Marie-Louise thought. She also considered it macabre in the extreme. If you looked for disaster and misfortune, it usually found you.

All four of them stood for a moment, looking at each other. They hadn’t planned on this eventuality. However, Emmie could already see how it might work in their favour. If only the planes did not throw off their bombs right here, it should all work, the girl mused. She turned to her uncle, even as they heard the first explosions in the distance. “Onkel, if we leave now, people will think we are going to a shelter, wherever they see us, they will not think it suspicious. This is the perfect time to get out without anybody noticing! Where could we hide better than in full sight?”

Johannes hesitated. “I would rather wait until everybody has gone, then nobody will remember seeing strangers. Don’t forget that here, we know most people. It is not like Wien, where next-door neighbours can be strangers.”

There were hurried footsteps on the stairs above and below as the other inhabitants of the building left to go to the shelters. Thank God, the SS-man is out of the house, Marie-Louise thought, somewhat irrelevantly. And shocked herself by wishing that the planes might drop a bomb on him.

Joanna dashed to the window of her bedroom as more explosions sounded, farther away than the first. Looking back over her shoulder, she told the others to put out the light, and then twitched back the curtain. Far outside town, a red glow lit up the night sky. “What is that?” she asked. “Isn’t that over in Kaltental?”

Her uncle looked out of the window. And his face grew grim. “That,” he said, “was the railway station.” He did not mind the building being destroyed – heaven knows it had been ugly enough at the best of times – but the number of lives lost, that bothered him a great deal. Kaltental station was small, but a number of important trains going south passed through it, and many of those trains stopped and went onto disused tracks at night. Trains full of provisions, or people. “All the men will be going to help fight the fire.” He stated, sure of it even as he spoke. “With the women in the shelters, this is the perfect opportunity.” If the planes don’t come back here, he mentally added.

In that case, they would have little chance of survival outside.

 

#8:  Author: dackel, Location: Wolfenbuettel, Germany/Cambridge, England PostPosted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 4:35 pm

8. Leaving home
“Girls, get the things you want to take, if you don’t already have them. Johannes, fetch the food. I will just make sure that everything is tidied away and that we have left nothing which might give any clue as to our whereabouts, or our disguises. And all of you, remember to open the curtains once you have turned the lights off.” Marie-Louise herded them away from the window, and the family members went about their separate tasks, all the time listening for the return of the planes, or any sign of steps on the stairs.

The girls returned to their room, and looked through their possessions carefully for one last time. Most of their things, almost all the toys and books they had had when they were children, they had had to part with after Mutter and Vater had died. They had given them to their neighbours, or had had to throw them away. There was not much left, but some things still pulled at their heart-strings. They wandered about the room, gently touching the things which were so dear to them. The doll, the brushes and mirror which had been their mother’s, the small chess set their father had had when he was a child. It would all have to be left behind.

Emmie looked at Joanna unhappily. “Is there anything else you think we can take?” she asked.

Joanna looked about her despondently, and then suddenly gave a cry, springing to the wardrobe, opening the doors, and feeling for the small hole in the floor. She lifted out the floorboard and felt inside the hole, coming up with a package wrapped in an old handkerchief. Her face was triumphant. “Our guide-badges!” she said. “We must take those. If we ever get to England, maybe we can join again. I always wanted to achieve more.” And, for a moment, she revelled in the happy memories of the fun she had had in her guide-company, and the camps she had been on, and the things she had learnt.

Emmie smiled, also caught up in the past, and then, suddenly her lip curled, as she thought of other camp-fires, and songs which had made mockery of her guide promises. She almost snarled as she considered how the evil of this nation had taken its youth and filled it with its false doctrines. It had been so subtle, at the start, so insidious, that she had hardly noticed, and had almost found herself going along with what was said, and what was done. That was the most frightening thing, she thought. They had almost had her. It had been so close. But she had managed to resist, and make Joanna resist, leaning on the things she learnt at the School, and with the Guides. It was no wonder, she reflected, that Hitler had the loyalty of the other young people. If she had not had her bulwark of Chalet School ideas, she might well be one of the HJ, wanting to serve the Reich.

She held out her hand for the badges, and pinned them into the pocket of the dress she wore under her skirt.

Then she held out her hand again, and, as Joanna clasped it firmly it, they took one last look around the room, and then stepped out into the hallway, closing that door behind them forever.

Marie-Louise went into the kitchen, and made sure that all the dye-bottles were washed, and put away in the spice cupboard, and that the rests of the make-up had been burned in the stove, its boxes going into a drawer of the side-board which was full of odds and ends.

She looked around. Everything looked completely normal, not a thing out of place, nothing to show how hurriedly their departure had had to be organised. But then, they had been planning this for months, really. She stood by the kitchen table and stroked its gleaming surface with a finger, remembering all the times she had polished it, the happy times when she and Johannes had first been married, and had received this table as a present form Johannes’ parents for their wedding. The sad times when she had sat at it with her head in her hands, grieving bitterly over yet another miscarriage or still-born babe, wondering whether she would ever have children.

Suddenly she smiled, for she did have children now, though they had come to her late in life, and were almost grown up. Anything that had to be done to keep them and Johannes safe, she would do. Leaving her home, made-up like, well, she thought, she might as well admit it to herself, a trollop, was nothing, though she hated it. These children had been entrusted to her care, and she would die rather than see them caught by the evil people who had taken over her beloved country, and chased her from her home. Fiercely, she thumped the table with her fist, and then jumped as she felt Johannes’ hand on her arm.

“Whatever are you doing?” he asked, surprised, for he had rarely seen his wife look so angry, or so determined.

She laughed, slightly shamefacedly. “I was just thinking that the Nazis might be able to make us leave, and make us afraid, but that I would have no fear to do anything to keep the girls safe.”

Johannes grip on her arm tightened, then he let go and turned away, his face pained.

“Oh my dear, I did not mean to sound as if I blamed you!”, she cried, reaching up to take hold of his shoulder and swing him back around to face her. “You should know that I could never blame you for what you did. It was right, and what else could you possibly have done to save that poor child? I would be the last one to stop anybody from saving a child; I just wanted to say that I would do anything to save ours!”

He looked up at that, astonished again and then nodded. “Yes, they do feel like that, don’t they.” he agreed. “I never thought I would feel like this over children that weren’t actually mine.” He smiled down at her. “When we are safe again, maybe we can help look after some of the orphans this war has created. I am sure they will need many people to take care of such children, and who could do better than a doctor and a nurse?”

As her eyes widened, and she nodded speechlessly, he took her gently in his arms, and she returned the embrace, but then broke away. “We have to go.” she said. “Have you checked the bathroom, and our bedroom?”

Johannes nodded. He put his arm around her, and, letting her cast a last glance around the kitchen, led her out into the hall, where the girls were already waiting.

Emmie and Joanna turned as their aunt and uncle rejoined them. They smiled at each other nervously, all privately dreading having to leave the house to go out into the world they all knew could be cruel beyond belief, and all determined not to show it to the others.

“Have you got everything, Maedchen?” Marie-Louise asked.

Emmie nodded. “Yes, Tante. We decided that all we could bring were the photos, and out guide-badges.”

“Is that not a bit foolish?” Johannes asked. “What if somebody sees these badges? You would never be able to explain them.”

The girls looked at each other, and then Emmie answered. “We can’t leave them here to be found. I have pinned them to the inside of the pocket of my bottom layer skirt. If anybody finds them there, it will probably no longer matter.”

Silence spread over the little group, as the meaning of Emmie’s words became clear to her aunt and uncle. At first they were stunned by Emmie’s blunt assessment of the situation, but in their hearts, they had to admit that she was right.

Johannes nodded abruptly, and then stepped woodenly over to the front door, and opened it. The three women stared at the dark rectangle as a rabbit might gaze at a snake, until the sisters unfroze from their overwhelming fear, and moved towards their uncle.

 

#9:  Author: dackel, Location: Wolfenbuettel, Germany/Cambridge, England PostPosted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 4:36 pm

9. Into the Darkness
“Be as quiet as you can, do not run, and if you see anybody, we are strangers here, who do not know where the bomb shelters are. We were bombed out two weeks ago, and have since been travelling south to get to relatives. We have got lost, and do not know where we are. We have no papers because they were burnt in our house, and the authorities were in too much chaos to give us new ones, as the party head-quarters of our region was destroyed. Is that all clear, Emmie? Joanna?”

The girls nodded, and then simultaneously stepped out onto the dark staircase, shivers creeping up and down their spines, despite their many layers of clothing, goose-bumps rippling over their bodies and tightening their scalps, stomachs clenching with fear.

Marie-Louise and Johannes glanced around the little hall, with its rows of boots and shoes, and the coats hung up neatly in a row on the wall. They took a last look at the raged rug on the floor, and the honey-coloured wooden floorboards Marie-Louise had often silently cursed when she had to polish them. In the large wooden framed mirror on the wall, the faces of two frightened old people reflected back at them. They both wondered if they knew what they were doing, and if they were making the right choice. And both knew that really, there was no choice. Johannes placed his arm around his wife’s shoulders as they, too walked out onto the stairs.

Johannes turned back to switch off the lights and paused. “Did you pull all the curtains?” he asked. “If they are still drawn by midday tomorrow they will notice we have gone.”

Marie-Louise reassured him. “I pulled them in each room after I had turned out the lights. Maedchen?”

Emmie nodded. “We pulled our curtains back across before leaving, Tante.” she said.

Inside, Marie-Louise wanted to go back and check everything, the lights, the curtains, the stove, oh no, had she left the stove on? She battled with herself firmly; she could not let her ordinary internal check-list take control. She knew she had done all these things, but she still wanted to double check. What if…? She told herself to be silent in tones that would have done Matey at her most irate proud, and managed to turn away from the home she did not want to leave.

Johannes reached inside the door, and felt for the light-switch. “Are you all ready?” he asked. “We will not be able to come back for anything. Ever.” His voice shook slightly, as he thought of all the things they had to leave behind. He agonised most over his doctor’s bag, but they had agreed that bags were too obvious. People who were bombed out like they were going to pretend to have been did not possess bags. How right people were who claimed that, over the years, belongings came to own you. At least he had been able to stuff bandages and some basic medicines into his pockets. Just in case.

The women nodded and Johannes slowly flicked the switch. Complete darkness descended on the group.

He grasped the door-handle, and the pulled the door shut firmly behind him, thinking as he did so that he really must oil that hinge…simply because he always thought it, when he closed the door, and never did anything about it. And never would, now.

The girls stood in the darkness, listening to the creaking of the door, feeling the change in the air-pressure as it met with the frame, and hearing the almost inaudible click of the lock. The door had closed.

 

#10:  Author: dackel, Location: Wolfenbuettel, Germany/Cambridge, England PostPosted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 4:36 pm

10. Onto the Street
Quietly, quietly, they crept down the stairs, Johannes first, the three women following him, wincing at each creaking step, although they knew that there was nobody there to hear them. Finally, after many flights of stairs, they reached the bottom.

Emmie breathed a sigh of relief. It had seemed that that horrible descent was to go on forever, as if they had reached a horrible state of limbo, in which time stretched, and seconds appeared like hours. Having to go down so slowly, so as not to trip in the dark, having to feel for each step as it came, trying to remember which ones made a noise, and which didn’t, terrified to let go of the banister in case she should fall, and go rolling down and down for all eternity… She shuddered, and then brought her thoughts back to the present. Now was not the time for indulging in flights of fancy, though her brain was desperately trying every available avenue to take her mind off the dangers which lay ahead.

As they gathered in the entrance hall, Johannes went to the front door, and opened it silently to look out of the small gap. The hinges of this door, at least, had always been kept well-oiled. He stared out into the now silent night. The air-raid sirens had long stopped, but a glow still lit up the night sky, so all the men must still be out, fighting the fire. And the women and children would spend the night in the shelters. Nobody would think of moving out of them, when they had probably just about got all the children to sleep. Beckoning the women over, he pressed a finger to his lips, though they could barely see him in the gloom of the little hall. He opened the door a little further, and motioned them out.

Marie-Louise stepped out without hesitation, now accepting the fact that they had to leave. A deeply practical woman, she felt she could not change things, and no wishing would make it any better, so there was no point in regret. She had mourned her home, and all the things she would be leaving behind. She had wept in her husband’s arms, and been comforted. Now was the time to look forward, and prepare for all eventualities.

Emmie also walked out into the night. She stared about her at the familiar street, which now seemed so strange, lit only by the glow of the distant fire. What with the curfew and her aunt and uncle’s worry for them, she had not been out at night for years, and certainly never this late. She automatically went to look at her watch, and then realised that, under all her layers of clothing, there was no way she could get at it - and even if she could have, it would have been impossible to make out the hands. But she knew it must be well past midnight, probably something like half past one in the morning. She should have been tired, after a hard day at work, and all the stresses and strains of the evening, but she felt highly energised. Adrenalin, she remembered from Miss Wilson’s science lessons. That was what was keeping her awake and upright, and ready to run. She suddenly realise that her sister had not come out with her, and turned.

Joanna was cowering in the shadow of the doorway, overwhelmed with fear at having to leave the deceptive safety of the building. She only knew that once they left, that was it. They would have to lead a life on the run, and it didn’t seem that they were even going to England. She wanted to stay, she wanted to run so far away that nobody could find her, not the police, not the SS, no, not Hitler himself, with all his armies and raving speeches. Eyes widened with terror at losing everything that had made up the precarious stability of her world, she suddenly became aware that that her uncle was standing directly behind her, waiting for her to walk on, and that Emmie was gently shaking her arm.

“We have to go.” she whispered, almost inaudibly. “If we stay, we will die.”

Joanna shook her head as if to deny the truth of these blunt words, but then commanded her shaking legs to carry her those few steps over the threshold, and out into the darkness.

Her uncle followed her, and gently closed that - the last - door behind them. They had all known what they had to do, but now, as they stood there in the black-out hush, the reality, and the enormity of their situation came crashing down on them all. They had burnt all their bridges behind them, and now could do nothing but leave.

Then, after one last look at the house, they started walking.

They crept quietly through the streets, once again starting at every noise, attempting to slip from shadow to shadow and stay as invisible as possible.

Marie-Louise thanked God silently for the fact that everyone was in the air-raid shelters. Knowing that there might be people about, looking from the windows, was bad enough, knowing that there definitely were people behind the dark windows would have been infinitely worse.

Joanna gripped Emmie’s arm so tightly that the elder girl was sure that she would bear the bruises for the rest of her days, but she was too concerned with walking as quietly as she could to voice any objections. And she knew how hard it had been for Joanna to leave the house at all. She would do whatever she could to help Joanna control her fear. They could not have her going rigid again; they had to keep on moving.

Joanna, meanwhile, was reciting inaudibly to herself the School’s unofficial motto, first coined by the redoubtable Matron. “I am not a spineless jellyfish. I am not…” If she repeated it to herself often enough, she thought, she might just end up believing it. She did not allow herself to raise her glance from the ground directly before her feet, knowing that she would not be able to control her fear if she saw all the houses with so very many windows behind which watchers might be lurking to give them away. Hastily, she wrenched her thoughts away from this terrifying prospect. Maybe if she interspersed her recital with “I am not afraid.” it would finally work…

Johannes kept a good look-out, hoping that if anyone came their way, he would either be able to hide the family in time, or tell whoever it was the story he had concocted, and which he thought was believable. It even managed to explain their missing papers, but who knew if such an explanation would be accepted from a group of four, stealthing through a town in the dead of night, when they should be in an air-raid shelter.

The streets seemed strange and menacing to all four of them, and they expected danger at any moment, so that when they saw a group of complete strangers on the other side of the road, Emmie and the two grown-ups caught their breaths in alarm, making Joanna look up to see the cause of their fright.

And giggle slightly hysterically, hastily clapping her hand to her mouth to stifle the sound. The other three glared at her, unable to understand her mirth, and then looked back at the people who had alarmed them. In the shop-window opposite them they could see, in the faint glow of the light cast over the town by the fire in Kaltental, a tall man with a black beard, a smaller lady with tousled curly hair, and two dark-looking girls with long hair, all dressed in bulky garments. After a collective sigh of relief, they continued on their way, determined not to jump at shadows, or indeed reflections, again.

Joanna worked up the courage to look about her and keep watch for danger like the others. Her grip on Emmie’s arm loosened gradually, though she still kept up her mantra, through lips which had become dry from the constant repetition.

They came closer and closer to the edge of town, only once being forced to retreat into a side passage as the saw movement on the main street. It turned out to be stray dog, and once again the group felt slightly ridiculous, although, as Johannes pointed out to them in a murmur, it was better to over-vigilant than careless. He wanted them all to watch their surroundings and speak immediately if they even thought they had seen something. Fortunately, they saw no other living beings as they made their way towards the country-lanes which they planned to use on their way towards France.

 

#11:  Author: dackel, Location: Wolfenbuettel, Germany/Cambridge, England PostPosted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 4:37 pm

11. Playground by night
Finally, they passed through the children’s playground, which lay deserted and neglected in an old field. The walk through the town had lasted only about half an hour, although it had seemed to take forever. The wind rustled in the trees, and the night’s chill caused them to tremble despite their many layers. Fear made them feel cold to their core, and not all of their shivers had to do with the temperature of the night.

Joanna looked about fearfully; sure she had seen something moving, and almost certain that it had just been the wind moving the branches on the trees. She had liked coming to this playground when they had first come to live with their aunt and uncle, even though she had really been too old for such childish pastimes by then. But it had reminded her of better times, when her mother and father had taken her to play in their playground, and had watched while they played with the other children, or had pushed them on the swing. Now it was spooky and silent, and just the kind of place, she thought, which was haunted in stories. She looked about again, and changed her mantra to "Be brave."

Emmie saw her lips moving, and patted her arm gently, still not wanting to speak, although they had left the houses behind them. Marie-Louise gently shooed the girls on before her, pointing them over to the gate where Johannes stood, waiting for them.

Just as he was opening the gate which led from the playground into the neighbouring field, a voice rang out behind them.

“Halt.”

 

#12:  Author: dackel, Location: Wolfenbuettel, Germany/Cambridge, England PostPosted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 4:38 pm

12. Frozen in Fire
As one, they froze. Johannes was the first to recover from the fright and turned around, wondering whom he would see. And praying that it would not be the ones whom he feared.

The women also turned. At first, none of them could see anybody and they peered into the darkness, anxious and afraid. There had been were strange rumours about this playground and it was very dark...

Suddenly, a match flared in the darkness, and they saw a man sitting on one of the swings, idly swinging backwards and forwards. The cigarette which he had lit illuminated only his face, and did nothing to lighten the gloom.

"Who are you and what are doing, creeping through the playground in the middle of the night?" the figure asked in a voice that sounded strangely hoarse, as if someone had applied sandpaper to the throat from which it was forced.

Johannes frowned. He remembered voices like that...but he had to answer, and told the story which he had thought up. "We are refugees." he claimed. "We were near the town when we heard the sirens, and thought to find a shelter but by the time we had, they had stopped and it did not seem worth stopping, so we carried on. We are going to join my brother in..."

"Stop." said the voice, without emotion. The man doubled over in a fit of coughing, and Johannes had to control himself not to ask what was wrong and whether he could help. He allowed himself a wry smile in the dark. Once a doctor, always a doctor.

"Now, start again, and this time, tell me the truth." the stranger continued, recovering from the spasms which still shook him. "And tell the women to get back in here."

Johannes turned again to find that they had been edging out of the gate, further into the darkness and felt proud of them. At least he knew that they would do what he had told them when it was necessary.

Slowly, and with lagging steps, they returned to the playground, Joanna huddling half behind her sister. She had had no trouble identifying the voice, though something had happened to it since the last time she had heard it. It had lost all life.

The man stood up slowly from his seat on the swing, and limped over to them. Only when he was close to them was the light of the cigarette enough for them to see him in any detail. He certainly was not a pretty sight. His clothes were burnt and torn, his hair untidy, and singed in patches. He had no eyebrows and swayed slightly as he walked.

Johannes took a step towards him but stopped abruptly when this walking scarecrow pulled a pistol from the holster hidden by the dark and pointed it straight at him. "Stay where you are."

He circled them as they stood stiffly, watching his every movement. "You are not refugees." he stated. "You're far too clean; you've never slept in the fields. Where are your papers?"

For the first time, Marie-Louise spoke. "They were burnt in the fire that destroyed out home." she said bravely.

The man shuddered and they saw his eyes widen. "Fire..."

"Yes," she stated gently. "Fire. I used to be a nurse. Can I not help you? You are hurt."

The pistol came up again as she reached out to him and she let her hand fall to her side.

"Help me? Nobody can help me." the man's voice continued, still in that eerie tone of calm, as if he stood far away and was only watching himself. "I have been burning a long time now. Long before the train stopped at the station and the bombs fell."

His voice sank to a whisper and he seemed to forget the four people who stood before him fearing that they would not leave this encounter alive.

Suddenly he spoke again and they all jumped. "Can you sing?" he demanded of Marie-Louise. She simply stared at him, stunned by this unexpected question. His attention focused on the two girls. "Can you sing?" There was a hungry tone in his voice, the first emotion they had heard, and, over his shoulder, Johannes nodded at the girls.

Joanna stepped out from behind Emmie, her head down, her hands folded before her. "I can sing." she stated bravely, not looking at him, hoping and praying that he would not look too closely, would not see her face...

"Then sing." he commanded harshly. "Sing something to make the world real to me again."

The girl, desperate for inspiration, looked at her sister, who could only look back blankly as her panicked mind tried to think of a song, any song.

"Sing!" The man shouted. He dropped the cigarette from shaking fingers and the group was again shrouded in darkness.

So she sang. The first song that came into her mind. Inappropriate though it was.

Her voice shook on the first few words and then settled as she remembered long gone-by lessons with Mr. Denny. "Head up, control your breathing and sing from the heart." Those were the three most important pieces of advice he had given her.

As the words of "Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht" rang through the playground, the man gasped, and they heard him sink to his knees, the grass rustling as his weight crushed it.

His breath was harsh and suddenly Johannes realised when he had heard voices such as this before. It was a long time ago. He had forced himself to forget so much. It was as if he were back at the trenches, trying to comfort a man who knew that he was going to die of the poisonous gas he had breathed. He shuddered, overcome with an avalanche of memories until he felt his wife's hand on his arm. She gripped his hand tightly and he returned to the present as Joanna finished her song.

He gestured to her to carry on as he gently released Marie-Louise and approached the stranger. For a small moment the clouds parted, the moon shone through, and he could see the man kneeling on the ground, his head in his hands, in obvious mental and physical agony. It was clear that he had been burnt in the fire at the station but there had to have been something else to put him in such a state.

Joanna was now singing a psalm, her head back, her eyes closed and her hands clenched at her sides. "...though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil..."

Johannes was just a step away when the man, the young man, he could now see, raised his head. His eyes were drenched with tears. "I am the evil." he whispered. "You would not believe the things I have seen, done, been forced..." His voice was drowned by the harsh sobs which seemed torn from his throat.

As Johannes knelt beside him, he saw the boots which he had missed before, and identified the young man's ruined clothes as uniform. His own throat closed as he smelled the stench of smoke which had permeated the rags. He was not surprised to see, at the neck of the once-fine uniform, the charcoaled rests of an emblem similar to that which had caused them such fear earlier that evening. This young man with so much pain in his eyes was a member of the SS.

 

#13:  Author: dackel, Location: Wolfenbuettel, Germany/Cambridge, England PostPosted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 4:40 pm

13. Mercy
The older man sat back on his heels and placed a gentle hand on the stranger’s shoulder. He stiffened and stared at Johannes in amazement. “You have seen what I am and still you have…sympathy for me?” he asked, clearly unbelieving, the sound of his voice a mere whisper. “I was forbidden sympathy long ago. I cannot remember when was the last time I looked at somebody and actually saw them as a person. You can’t afford think about such things or you can’t do it.” His eyes were fixed on a point over Johannes’ right shoulder, whatever he saw; it was clearly not the dark playground under a night sky.

Marie-Louise murmured to Joanna, who was running out of hymns the words of which she knew. “Sing lullabies.” Then, even as Joanna began the old song “Schlaf, Kindlein, schlaf”, she stepped forward to her husband’s side. Bending down to the soldier, she asked gently:”What can you not do?”

The young man blinked and focused on her face. “You can’t kill them.” He answered, without pausing to think. He said it as if it were blindingly obvious. “You can’t just shoot somebody if you know that their children are watching, or that their wife was killed the day before. You can’t.”

Although shivers were working their way up Marie-Louise’s spine, she continued to probe. “Was that what you had to do, mein Junge? Shoot people? Is that why you are burning?”

Her husband started, fearing that she was too blunt and that the young man would again feel threatened. But he seemed to trust her, and her almost motherly tone caused him to reveal things to them which he could not have told anyone else. He looked at them pleadingly. “I had to. They ordered it. And if you refused…you might end up put against the wall yourself.” His glance fell on his hands, which he had folded before him. “At least in the old days I could have confessed, I could have been forgiven… Who will ever forgive me for me I have done? How can I possibly atone?”

At this, Emmie also joined the group around the young soldier. “You must ask God for forgiveness.” she stated quietly. “You must ask, and show that you truly repent, and he will forgive you, though you cannot forgive yourself.”

He gazed at her; her obvious faith making an impression on him. “I cannot believe that he will forgive me.” He said hopelessly. “How could he forgive me for all the lives I have taken?”

Joanna finally stopped singing and walked towards the soldier, accepting that she might be recognised. “You could begin to atone by sparing the lives of the innocent.” she said. “You could let us go, who have never done you any harm, and who would help you even after we know what you have done.”

The man’s face brightened for a second as he heard her speaking voice, and he stared at her intently, trying to make out her features in the dark. Then, suddenly: “Joanna?” He sounded disbelieving.

She did not answer at first. “And if I was a person named Joanna whom you knew some years ago?” she said finally. “Would you be more willing to let us go?”

As he smiled for the first time, her family looked at her in astonishment, unable to understand how Joanna could possibly know this man, who was a stranger, as they had thought, to all of them.

Taking his smile as sign that he might just be willing to let them escape, Joanna came closer. “Will you let us move on?” she repeated her question.

The soldier simply looked up at her, studying her face. “You look so different.” he said. “If it hadn’t been dark, I would not have recognised you.” Then, as Joanna looked confused, he explained “I knew your voice. If I had just seen your face, I would not have known you.” And, after a slight pause. “Why are you running away?”

Joanna looked towards her uncle for guidance. He shrugged fatalistically. This one broken man could not stop them, now he had laid down his gun. What difference would it make? Maybe it would even help if he knew that they had done nothing wrong.

The girl turned back to the younger man. “My uncle helped to save a small child, a baby, from being deported with its family. Now they want to come and arrest us all.” she stated baldly.

The soldier winced. Her words were like a knife stabbed into his already wounded heart. How could he serve people who would do such a thing? No matter what the parents had done, the child should not have to suffer. In his head, he could hear the voice of a particularly blood-thirsty primary teacher. The man had loved the merciless parts of the Old Testament and would always read them in Bible study classes. A favourite of his had been “and the sins of the parents shall be visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation”. He shuddered, imagining what would happen to this family if they were caught. Endless questions, the camps, the hunger, the deprivation, the torture, and, finally, death. He made up his mind.

“You may go on.” He stopped as the girl’s shoulders sagged in relief. “But tell me, are you Joanna?”

She looked down to him and smiled. “I am Joanna.” she confirmed. “Do you still believe that girls aren’t strong enough to carry heavy boxes?”

He flashed back an answering smile. “You were so small when you came to work at the shop, I didn’t think you could possibly do the work. And then my father told me to carry all the boxes…”

“And you went off and dawdled and by the time you came back…”

“You had taken them all into the storeroom and my father almost had a fit!”

They both laughed, and suddenly the family understood who this young man was. Gerd Maurer, son of the manager of the small shop where Joanna had been sent to work after she left school. She had often told them about him and had been sorry when he had left to go, as she thought, into the regular army. None of them had known that he had entered the SS.

Even as understanding dawned upon Emmie and her aunt and uncle, Gerd doubled over, coughing in spasms which brought his knees up to his chest.

 

#14:  Author: dackel, Location: Wolfenbuettel, Germany/Cambridge, England PostPosted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 4:40 pm

14. Atonement
Johannes bent over him in concern, not liking what he heard. “How much smoke did you breathe in?” he demanded. “Was the fire very bad where you were?”

The younger man tried to answer but could not speak around the spasms which were taking all his breath. Closing his eyes, he made a heroic attempt to control himself and finally managed to gasp out “Was in…station building…full of…smoke…very hot…nearly collapsed…” the rest was drowned out by another coughing fit.

The doctor frowned. This was not a good sign. “You should go to a hospital as soon as possible.” he stated. Although he did not know how much good it would do. If his lungs were damaged…

Gerd saw the doubt in his face and smiled. “Do not be concerned, Herr Doktor.” he said calmly, the fit over. “If I die, it is surely no more than I deserve. And,” his eyes took on a far-away look which Johannes recognised only too well from the young soldiers he had had to patch up in the last war, “maybe I shall find peace at last.”

The older man sighed. It was the look of someone who wanted nothing more than leave behind them all the pain and anguish they had come to connect with the life they led. Almost all the ones who had looked like that had died without returning to the field. They had just given up and drifted away. Mainly around the hour of dawn, he had noticed. He gazed sadly at this very old and weary young man and then glanced at the sky. Dawn could not be too far off.

Joanna looked at her uncle in horror, understanding only too well the expression of indefinable sadness that she saw on his face. That she had seen on the faces of the doctors when both her parents had been ill, and about to die. Impulsively, she flung herself on her knees before Gerd and took his hands. “You mustn’t give up!” she cried softly. “What will your father do without you? What about your dreams? You told me once you wanted to be a teacher…” Tears began to spill from her eyes, the first she had allowed herself to shed since they had realised they had to flee.

The young man reached out with a dirty and soot-blackened hand and wiped the tears gently from her cheeks. He could not believe she would still weep for him, not after all he had told them, after all he had done. Maybe she still saw him as the boy he had been when she knew him. He wished he had never left his home town, had never thought of joining the SS. The glory of being a soldier was what he had wanted – he almost laughed at the irony of it. Blind was what he had been, blind and damnably ignorant. And he could never go back to who he had been before. No matter how much he wanted to. It was too late.

Suddenly, his head snapped around to the entrance of the play-ground as he heard voices on the street. They were calling something. His name! They must have come looking for him. He listened carefully, hearing snatches of words. “Maurer…you? Come on…celebrate...hero of the night…”

All the others had frozen, looking at him intently to see what he would do. He squeezed Joanna’s hands gently and got up. “Go,” he said. “I never saw you. You weren’t here.”

She stared at him. “But…what are you going to do?”

He gazed back at her. Maybe he could help them. “I would have like to have seen her with light hair again.” he thought irrelevantly, pulling her into a quick hug, and then pushing her towards her family. “Go, go, they’ll be here soon…”

“But…”

“Go! I shall go out and meet them. And then I shall atone.”

By the look in her eyes, he could see that she had understood. She stretched a hand out to him in protest even as Emmie pulled her away and they all ran to the gate, and then through it into the fields, where they would be invisible on such a dark night.

He stared after them for a moment, wishing nothing more than that he could have taken that hand and gone with them. But he had a duty to do here. And he would only have been a burden. He had seen the doctor’s face and known he would die. He did not mind really. And here, his death would have a point. They would not notice the family had gone for a few days. Maybe only after all the excitement had died down. He straightened his back, took a firm hold on his pistol and walked out to meet them.

As the family raced over the narrow ways between the fields, trying to distance themselves from the danger that the other soldiers represented, they heard Gerd shouting at the other men in a wild fashion, all about fire and endless burning. Other voices were raised, in fearful, angry or placating tones, drowning out his words.

None of them turned back as the single shot rang out and shattered the seeming tranquillity of the night-darkened countryside.

 

#15:  Author: dackel, Location: Wolfenbuettel, Germany/Cambridge, England PostPosted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 4:42 pm

15. Shelter
At last they felt able to stop and simply breathe. They had stumbled over the fields in the dark, unable to run, too frightened to walk, hardly knowing where they were going, just wanting to get away from the tragedy which had so suddenly come into their lives. Finally, Marie-Louise asked them to stop. They stood in silence for several minutes until they felt ready to go on. None of them had said a word since they had left the town behind them.

As they carried on across the fields, Joanna reached for Emmie’s hand, and the two girls continued side by side. Marie-Louise was clinging to her husband’s arm and clearly could not go on much longer. The excitement of the evening, the lack of sleep, the debilitating fear and the grief over Gerd were catching up with all them.

Johannes began looking for somewhere they could spend the day, for he did not want them to be out so near the town from which they had fled while it was light. In the distance he saw the edge of the woods, which were simply a darker line against the black sky. Inwardly, he heaved a sigh of relief, for he had feared that they had lost their way in their mad flight. They could easily hide in the woods during the day and continue on their way the next night. Once they were farther away, they could begin travelling by day.

Silently, he pointed towards the woods and felt his wife straighten, slightly revived at the thought of a definite goal. The girls noticed his gesture and both nodded in relief. Johannes shook his head. They were so alike, if Joanna had been a little taller, they could have been twins. Suddenly he was relieved that they were not. Travelling with twins would have been a nightmare. The Gestapo would have descriptions of them out before long anyway. Looking for twins would have been easy for them - might as well have handed them over to start with. Maybe Gerd’s death would delay things a little. Maybe they would not notice that the family had fled until they sorted out all the bureaucracy around the death. “Der liebe Gott knows what explanation they will find for that.” he thought. Possible that they would spend so much time looking for an explanation that they would not notice for a few days…Realising that his thoughts were going around in circles, he made himself concentrate on reaching the line of trees.

Emmie stared up at the trees which appeared to loom over them, and the edge of the wood which seemed as straight as if it had been cut by a knife. There was little enough light in the fields but in amongst the trees it looked even darker. Suddenly she realised that there was more light than there had been. Not much, but a little.

“Onkel,” she said, “it is getting lighter.”

He gazed around and then nodded. “Get in between the trees, Maedchen, and look for a hollow, or a place behind the some fallen trees where we will not be seen.”

Both girls slipped into the wood and started their search together as the older couple followed at a slower pace. They had been Guides, and had done much rambling with the school, so they knew to be careful of where they walked, and they knew what to look for. Even so, in the dark, they nearly fell into the hollow which appeared before them. It was half covered by some old fallen trees.

Joanna looked around, noticing that she could actually see the whole hollow. “The sun will rise soon.” she said, just to say something. She thought that if she did not speak now, she might never begin again.

Her sister just nodded, and called for their aunt and uncle in a low voice. They soon caught up and pronounced the site perfect for hiding and resting during the day.

Marie-Louise took charge. “Unwrap the blankets from around you and spread them on the ground under the trees.” she directed. “Johannes, give the girls something to eat.” She soon had them all sitting down, eating the sandwiches she had made the previous evening. She could not believe it had been such a short time ago that she had stood in her own kitchen making sandwiches. And now she was a refugee, escaping from what passed as the law these days.

Joanna sat on her blanket, staring at nothing after she had eaten the food which she did not really want. She did not even notice that she was crying until she felt her uncle slip an arm around her and cradle her head on his shoulder. Then she cried, trying hard not make any noise, though she wanted to howl like a small child. Emmie patted her shoulder, murmuring nonsense into her ear about how everything would be all right. Joanna knew perfectly well that it would not be all right. It was already not all right and she could not see how it was to get any better.

“Kindchen, nobody could have saved him.” Johannes told her softly. “His lungs were too badly damaged, and he just did not want to live. I…I saw men like that in the last war. They died, even if their injuries were not fatal. They just gave up because they had grown to hate life. At least this way he died trying to make up for the way he had lived, trying to save somebody that meant something to him. If we had not come... Why do you think he was sitting in the playground, alone and with a gun in his hand?”

At that, she looked up, a look of bitterness on her face which sat ill on a countenance made for mischief and joy. “But he did it anyway, didn’t he? He might have done it to stop them following us, but he did it anyway. He killed himself, and now he is damned anyway.” Her face crumpled again. “And he was so afraid of the fire…”

“I cannot believe that God would be so cruel.” Emmie interjected hotly. “He had suffered so much, and he died to save us. Maybe he pulled the trigger, but they killed him as surely as if they had stood him up against the wall like the people he had to shoot. And I say he confessed his sins to us and we forgave him. If there is no priest, that is surely allowed.”


Joanna appeared slightly comforted by these words but her uncle knew from bitter experience that she would not live down this incident easily, and that it would resurface when she least wanted or expected it to, maybe for the rest of her life. Although he could have done nothing to change what had happened, he felt terribly guilty that they had had to suffer this, and might yet have to suffer worse, all because of one action which, if he was honest with himself, he could not even regret.

 

#16:  Author: dackel, Location: Wolfenbuettel, Germany/Cambridge, England PostPosted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 4:43 pm

16. A New Day
Marie-Louise had listened in silence, mainly because, now that she was sitting down, she could not keep her eyes open. “Let us lie down and sleep.” she said. “We are all tired out and it will be a long…night tomorrow.” She smiled tiredly at the changed expression, then considered how very much had changed besides commonplaces and sobered immediately. She lay down and despite her worries fell asleep almost immediately.

Johannes looked at the two girls. “We need somebody to stay awake to keep watch.” he said. “I consider you grown up now; you will have to be on this journey. Do you want me to take first watch, or would one of you prefer to have it?”

Emmie looked at them closely. Both had exhausted, drawn faces. She was sure she could stay awake another little while. “I shall take first watch. Onkel, will you have the second, and then Joanna can have the third? I think Tante needs as much sleep as possible. Maybe if we have three watches a night, I mean, a day, then one of us can have a full night’s sleep.”

Her uncle smiled, though she did not notice her final slip of the tongue. “That sounds like a good plan, Liebes, bless you.” he said. He turned to look at Joanna only to find that she had already lain down, and was, to all appearances, fast asleep. Kissing Emmie on the cheek, he went to lie next to his wife. “Wake me in three hours.” he mumbled, before falling into a sleep as exhausted as that of the others.

Emmie walked to the top of the small hollow and sat where nobody would see her, in between the roots of the fallen trees. She leant her back against them, and began reciting the Peace League oath in her head. Strangely, she did not feel that tired at all. Maybe it still the adrenalin keeping her awake, she did not know but was grateful that it was so easy. Again she swore to herself that she would not let anything happen to Joanna. Her heart had almost stopped when Joanna had had to sing and had then almost burst with pride at how well she had handled the situation, despite her fear. Next time, Emmie told herself, next time, she would not let danger stretch out its hands quite so close to her little sister.

As she gazed about her, listening for the smallest sound which might betray somebody approaching, she saw a light glowing between the trees. Catching her breath, she suddenly realised that it was the dawn.

Evening and morning, she thought, staring sombrely into the rising sun. A new day.

 

#17:  Author: Chalet_school_lover, Location: Gloucester PostPosted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 8:19 pm

That end bit still gets me! Thanks dackel, that was purely beautiful!

 

#18:  Author: aitchemelle, Location: West Sussex PostPosted: Mon Apr 17, 2006 12:11 pm

I am lost for words . Need thinking time.

 

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