Page 50 of Hell to Pay
“The Americans aren’t going to offer more help to a Jew, or persecute him less than any other,” Dr. Becker said. “Quite the contrary. Shall I tell you how many Jews they turned away before the war started? After the war started, of course, there was no getting away.”
“I hope you’re wrong,” I said. “Father says that they were good administrators in the last war, and fair, like the British. Here—I’ll hide your Kennkartewith mine, under the insoles of my shoes. That way I won’t be lopsided, and my shoes won’t wear out, either.”
Dr. Becker smiled just a bit at my joke and said, “But the children.”
“The children and I,” I said, “will have lost our Kennkartenin the disaster. Two more documents to hide in my shoes. I believe I must be another of your daughters, if you’ll have me.”
“You’ll be in less danger traveling alone. We could meet somebody at any time who recognizes me,” he said as I sorted through rucksacks and pillowcases—it’s so much easier to look through a rucksack than to rob a pocket! And to be farther away from the bodies, too.
“Nonsense,” I said, as robustly as I could manage, even as I abstracted the second-smallest of Frau Heffinger’s precious and very sharp knives. A knife would come in handy for so many things. “Father and Mother both told me to go with you, and what kind of daughter would disobey her parents’ last wish? Besides, I’m guessing it will take all our collective wits to get away from here and to the Americans. How would I manage alone, as a refugee? We’ll have to buck each other up.” I finished shoving the most transportable food into a single pillowcase, stood, and hesitated. “One more thing.”
“What?” he asked.
“I need a heavy coat,” I said, “to hide the parure.I can’t imagine how else to do it.” I remembered the rusty, threadbare coats of the two dead women in the crypt. Nobody would imagine that a coat like that would belong to a princess, much less that it would hide precious jewels. I couldn’t bring myself to rob them, though. Not strangers. I moved back to the pile of bodies and tried not to look at my parents. The body of Franz, the underbutler, was lying at the bottom of the pile. “Help me get his coat,” I told Dr. Becker.
I don’t want to remember pulling at Franz’s stiffening body, or the effort of wrestling off his coat. The coat he’d worn through the Russian winter. “If not for this coat,” he’d told me one day, heading outside on his prosthetic leg to chop wood for the stoves, “I’d be a dead man. Feel how thick and warm.” The coat looked terribly old and smelled a bit musty, and some stitching was coming loose along the lining. So much the better.
When I put it on, it hung nearly to my ankles, even though Franz hadn’t been a tall boy. He hadn’t had a chance to grow. Too young, and too much starvation in the Russian snow. I wanted to say something, to apologize, to tell him how sorry I was that he hadn’t survived after all his suffering, but Franz, too, was gone. I said “Thank you” anyway, though. Not for him. For me.
Dr. Becker had been shifting from foot to foot. As soon as I had the coat on, he said, “We must go. Now, while everything is disrupted, while everyone is still thinking only about themselves.”
“I agree.” I handed him one pillowcase, put Fräulein Lippert’s sewing kit into my new coat’s deep pocket, placed my two hands on the table, breathed in and out—the air was still very bad, and the smellgrowing terrible—then picked up my own pillowcase of food. “I’m ready.”
The journey back to the church, short as it was, was terrifying. It was full light now, I supposed, although the sun was completely blotted out by the choking smoke and the air a weird, glowing orange. As we picked our way over yet another rubble pile, a voice called out, “You there!”
I froze, then thought,Act normally,and asked, with all my mother’s aristocratic assurance, “Yes?”
“You need to leave the city,”the soldier said, “if you’ve been bombed out. Follow the main roads, and you’ll find volunteers there to direct you. Everyone must be evacuated to the countryside. There’s no food here, no facilities, nowhere to house you.”
“Yes,” I said. “Thank you. We’ll go now.” We hurried off, and I didn’t take a breath until we were around the corner.
We were nearly to the church doors when another voice called, “Halt!”
Ice in my veins again, but this time, Dr. Becker was the one who said, “Yes?” Sounding so cool and unconcerned.
I turned, saw the black and silver uniform of the SS, and stood stock-still, unable to think. The man said, “What are you doing here? Haven’t you been told? All bombed-out civilians from this area are to leave the city.”
“Yes,” Dr. Becker said. “We’d heard. We merely make a stop first at the church to give thanks to the Savior for our deliverance.” Andcrossed himself. He did it the correct way, too. That was coolness under pressure!
The SS man squinted at him as if in recognition and said, “Your papers, please.”
Dr. Becker handed over Herr Kolbe’s Kennkarte,and I had to bite my lip to stop myself trembling. How glad I was that I’d noticed he was still wearing the star! How disastrous otherwise!
The man scrutinized the document, handed it back, held out his hand to me, and said, “Your papers.”
“My daughter has unfortunately lost her Kennkarte,”Dr. Becker said. “We were trapped underground, and the air became very bad. We had to climb over others to escape. Many, I fear, were crushed. Her suitcase, as you see, was lost. How do we get her papers replaced, do you know? She’s lost her ration book as well, and I …” He took off his hat and ran a hand through his graying hair. “I don’t know what to do,” he finished.
“Leave the city,” the man said, sounding bored. “Find an official once you’re evacuated. That will do you more use than God.”
“Yes,” Dr. Becker said. “Thank you.” The man nodded and walked away, and we slipped into the church. I began to shake, but Dr. Becker said, “Come. Hurry. We must get back.” So there was no time to panic. In the tunnel, though, I saw rats scuttling away at the edge of my flashlight’s glow and nearly screamed. How relieved I was to make it back to this dark hole again, where I haven’t yet seen a rat—or the SS!
Once we returned, we gave the children Wurst and cheese with bread—that isn’t going to keep for long anyway—and Dr. Beckerheld the light for me while I found the correct stone in the cistern wall and removed the pieces of the parure.
“Three of the pieces will fit,” I said, feeling at the cuffs of Franz’s overcoat. “But the tiara won’t.”
“What’s the problem?” Dr. Becker asked.
“I can put the necklace in the left cuff,” I said. “And sew through the back side of the sleeve like so, anchoring it in place and making it less lumpy. The wool is very heavy, and I don’t think it’ll show.” I removed the glittering thing with its huge emerald center stone, its many diamonds, from its pouch, so I could arrange it around the entire cuff. Even that was a pang—how many times had I seen my mother take it out of its pouch of purple velvet! “And the brooch and earrings in the right cuff,” I said, “sewing them into place also. But the tiara—how do I hide the tiara?”
